


Wheel of misfortune

by Zombieheroine



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Awkward Crush, Canon Compliant, Communication Failure, Cycle of Abuse, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Recovery, Season/Series 03, dubcon as in consent is given but it's a bad idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:05:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 68,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3063839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieheroine/pseuds/Zombieheroine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starscream hates Megatron but has his own unique way of making up his several failures to him, just like Megatron hates Starscream but lets him make things up to him and also grants him rewards that no one else gets.<br/>Both are stuck in a spiral of nasty things that neither one is able to control any better than come out of them on the top.</p><p>As the doctor of the Nemesis Knockout gets to see things no one else does, and so he finds himself in a difficult and extremely sensitive position between his fellow officer and their Lord.</p><p>The war is taking a new turn and as Starscream has once again joined the Decepticon ranks, the wheel of misfortune is starting to turn again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Round after round

**1\. Round after round**

 

Starscream had already got to choose his own quarters in Darkmount and this pleased him: He was once again a high-ranking, respected officer who had privileges – no matter how small, such as choosing your quarters before the regular crew. 

Not that the choice was entirely his own since Megatron had taken his own pick first and it was in Starscream's best interest to choose his relatively close by. 

The Autobot base had been destroyed. Optimus Prime was presumed offline. The Deceptions were stronger than ever. If there had ever been time to celebrate this was it, and Starscream knew it too. He paced around his new quarters, shiny and new and bigger than what he had had aboard the Nemesis, trying to muster up enough courage to carry out his plan with a smile.

He picked up a cube of high-grade that he had managed to snatch earlier and gazed at the bubbly liquid inside the purple little cube like whatever as about to happen was its fault. With slightly shaky servos lifted it to his intake end emptied it with one go. A tender buzz of overcharge spread through his sensor net but did little to cloud his processor and Starscream sincerely wished he had another cube to fix that. 

But nobot gets everything they want all the time and so he decided he had procrastinated this long enough. It was time to make the first move in his plan, and so he stepped into the hallway and headed towards Megatron's quarters. 

The crew was having a party somewhere in the lower levels as told by the noise seeping through the layers of thick metal and echoing in the otherwise empty corridor. Starscream was steady on his pedes and his servos had thankfully stopped shaking, courtesy of the small cube of high-grade. The sternness of his posture comforted him when he buzzed the chime on the door of Megatron's quarters. 

The doors shuffled open soon enough and to Starscream's surprise Soundwave stepped out and past him, sent on his way by Megatron who was possibly grinning at a shared jest or more good news between the two of them. Starscream hadn't been expecting anyone aside himself and threw an uncertain look after Soundwave as the third in command went, and a sour taste rose up his intake that he had to swallow back down. This was supposed to be his big chance, his evening! If Soundwave had ruined it for him... 

“Starscream! Do come in!” Megatron invited his second – that's right, the second! Not the third but the second – and Starscream stepped inside, the door closing behind him. Megatron's tone was pleasantly surprised and joyful, and Starscream felt a familiar grieving gnawing his insides and a smile lighting up his face plates.

“Care for a drink on this fine day?” Megatron asked two high-grade cubes already in his servos.

“Yes, please, my Lord,” Starscream said and gladly accepted the second cube of the evening. 

Megatron was still wearing his smirk as he stepped close enough to hand the cube over.

“What shall we drink to?” he asked, and Starscream looked up to him in surprise. He hadn't expected his opinion to come into question. 

With a sheepish smile and one talon tapping the side of the cube he offered: “Um... How about for your great victory, Master?” 

Megatron rolled his optics and huffed mockingly. “Try again, Starscream, this time with a bit more spine!”

The seeker's wings jolted up and he had to consciously lower them again. The high-grade he had already drank made him feel a bit bold so he straightened up and suggested: “Then let us toast for a great day for the Decepticon cause, for the day of victory and the return of a valued crew member!”

Megatron raised an optic ridge at him but his crooked grin was amused, approving and maybe even slightly impressed, and Starscream had no trouble holding a steady optic contact. 

Megatron raised his cube. “I'll drink to that.”

Starscream bowed a little as he toasted, and they both emptied their cubes in one gulp. 

Then Megatron turned around and walked back to the table he had stored the high-grade on, alongside with several tools and sharp objects. Starscream eyed those warily but followed Megatron deeper into the room regardless, staying at an arm's length behind him. 

“And how is the valued crew member doing?” Megatron asked. 

“Ah – excellently, Master,” Starscream answered hastily. “He has returned to where he truly belongs, and has forgotten all foolish plans to ever be anything but a loyal Decepticon soldier.”

“That is good news,” Megatron chuckled and turned to the seeker again. 

Starscream couldn't figure out for the life of him if it was that smile targeted at him or the high-grade in his system that made his processor sway. He could only give another jerking bow and smile back. 

“It pleases me to be the bearer of such news,” he replied with the lightest stress on the key word. It might have been an accident, but it sure didn't escape the ever observant warlord. 

“The prosperity of the Decepticon cause is a wonderful thing,” Megatron agreed and casually sat down on the edge of the berth. It could have meant many things as a gesture, but all those possibilities were outshone by the show of Megatron simply sitting down. He didn't like anyone seeing him as any lesser than an almost supernatural embodiment of force and leadership and such a little thing as sitting down was a rare sight for anyone to witness. A privilege even, one might say.

“Of course it is, Master,” Starscream agreed. “As is the destruction of our enemies.”

“Yes, indeed!” Megatron chuckled. “You put it in words so well earlier. What was it that you said...?”

Starscream didn't right away know what Megatron meant and covered his thinking pause with a couple of swinging, slow steps in front of the other mech. He knew this game well. 

“United we stand, divided they fall,” he said with a sly smile. His back was slightly arched as he stood still, his wings held high and perky and his weight laying mainly on his right pede. Oh yes, he knew this game very well. 

And so did Megatron, who was resting his jaw on his servo and whose gaze burned when it scanned Starscream from helm to the tip of his pedes and back up again.

“Have you come to be rewarded, Starscream?” Megatron asked, his voice dropping low into a dark rumble. 

Starscream faked a mild surprise. “Well... If my Lord so sees fit... who am I to resist?” he asked with lop-sided smile and pretended amusement. 

“Indeed,” Megatron chuckled and straightened up, and the opening in his posture signaled to Starscream it was time to step closer and within the reach of Megatron's strong servos and claws. 

His steps had a swinging dip in them as Starscream stepped closer and between Megatron's knees, his helm pressed down and optics peering up to Megatron. His talons settled on the spread knees on either side of him in the lightest touch, not quite a caress but nearly there. Megatron's engine gave a low and firm hum and Starscream registered his own answering it. 

Up close Starscream's odor receptors inside his helm's small air vents registered a faint scent of high-grade coming from Megatron's intake as he ex-vented. As a bigger mech Megatron could tolerate far more intoxicating fuel in his system and he didn't appear overcharged, but the excuse used for their encounter was a shared one.

When Starscream was between Megatron's thighs and close enough to feel his venting on his face plates he dropped his gaze and pulled a neutral expression, but no matter what he did he couldn't silence his cooling fans that had stepped up a setting or two just from being this close to the other mech. 

This didn't escape Megatron – nothing ever escaped Megatron – and he chuckled out loud making Starscream shudder, vulnerable and exposed, and the warlord reached out with the index claw of his right servo. 

From the corner of his optic Starscream watched it warily as his processor attempted to furiously calculate the possibility distribution between pleasure and pain. The claw's sharp tip landed softly on the side of Starscream's helm just below his audio receptor, and then dragged across the side of his face plate before dipping under his jaw line. The faint but sharp noise alone made the seeker flinch, then Megatron forced him to look up by pressing his claw into the soft cabling under his chin. 

Megatron's optics were narrow and dim as he inspected the seeker. Starscream kept his own toned down as well and his lip plates slightly parted. He could almost taste the building charge in the air between them and had to cancel a request after request popping up on his HUD to push his glossa out to lick his lip plates and gather some of it into his system. 

“You did perform well today, Starscream,” Megatron said, voice smooth and low. “I remembered why I recruited you in the first place.”

The praise warmed the seeker's system from inside and made his spark swell with pride, and the next words came out natural and easy: “I live to serve you, Lord Megatron.”

It was exactly the right thing to say, and Megatron flashed him a sharp grin before seizing a firm hold of the seeker's neck and yanking him against himself and into a bruising kiss. 

Starscream gave a startled squeal when he was crushed against Megatron and his servos dashed up to prevent impact on his main frame, landing on Megatron's chassis, but he reacted to the kiss automatically by tilting his helm to a better angle and opening his intake so they could go deep right away. 

The servos exploring his frame were nearly gentle for now and Starscream settled out to enjoy their touch. Battle-worn palms and scratching claws felt him up from the slight curve of his pelvic plating to his cockpit and over his slender arms, behind his back and to the root joints of his shuddering wings. 

This kind of attention made Starscream feel good about himself. It made him remember how good he looked, so good that even grounders had to appreciate his aerodynamic design and the light metals of his frame, perfectly optimal for his function, even though they had no idea why these things were so important. He swayed on his place slightly, like dancing, and guided the touch where he wanted it and welcomed it when it arrived. 

Then the servos dropped over his aft and down on the back of his thighs where they grabbed a hold and hoisted him up. His optics snapped back online and a startled noise escaped his vocalizer when he was manhandled, and he had no choice but to hold on to Megatron's chassis for support. 

Megatron settled further on the berth pulling his pedes up and carried Starscream with him like he weighed nothing at all. He stayed sitting up but the seeker in his lap was slipping down, hanging on to his chassis with the side of his helm pressed against it, back arched and legs spread on either side of him. He had gone momentarily still like he was reassessing the situation, and Megatron had no patience for that. 

“Commander,” he ordered and moved a strong servo to press against the seeker's lower back, insisting. “Move. Do your job and arouse me before I tire of you.”

That got Starscream to stir and move again. He couldn't handle the humiliation of being rejected in the middle of this and being made to leave with the act incomplete. 

“Yes, Master. Right away, Master,” he mumbled and slid his talons down the front of Megatron's frame to his abdomen and begun to knead the metal and rock his hips against him. He knew exactly how much force to apply to cater to the sensors underneath the heavy armoring, he had learned it through trial and error and was now confident in it.  
Confidence was such a rare treat for Starscream, and here he drank it up like he had the precious drops of energon in his exile. 

Megatron's engines growled and his cooling fans clicked on to a higher setting, and Starscream knew he was on the right track. He raised his wings up and offered them to Megatron's grasping servos currently without anything to hold on to, and he caught the hint pretty quickly. This early in the act Megatron still had enough self-control for Starscream to willingly allow him near his wings and usually that paid off too. Like now when the larger mech had the decency to run his claws along the sidelines of the wings and rub the flats, sending pleasant rushes of charge down the seeker's spinal strut where it pooled in his interfacing array. 

Starscream's talons were thin and perfect for touching sensitive parts under the heavy armor since they could inch their way deep into transformation seams and find clusters on sensors to charge up. As he worked his way further from the abdominal plating, carefully skirting around the quickly heating panels covering the interface equipment and down Megatron's thighs, he went straight for the areas of sharp purple peeking from under the bulky armor. 

The tips of his talons lightly scratched on the thinner, layered plates on Megatron's inner thighs causing him to grunt and his venting come to a halt. Starscream spread his digits and caressed as large an area as possible and listened to the heavy aggressive revving of Megatron's engines.  
Megatron was purely enjoying himself for a moment, his helm leaning back and his servos rubbing on the back of Starscream's frame to ground himself and urge the seeker on. 

Starscream's cooling fans were whirling, the noise loud in his own audials as he kept caressing and stroking, eager to proceed already. His own frame was heating up from the stimulation and the charge building in his system was making him giddy and tense. He was ready to go further, but here he had to wait: It wasn't his decision. 

Finally Megatron got enough of the stroking and grinding and grabbed on Starscream's arms, yanking him up and all the way on his pedes.  
The seeker fumbled for support optics flaring wide and reluctantly grasped on Megatron's shoulders with his servos. He was uncertain on his pedes and suddenly embarrassed by his position with his legs spread and leaning on Megatron while the pair of red optics stared up to him with a malicious glow. 

Megatron dropped his servos on the seeker's pelvic plating and without wasting any time pushed the left one between the legs, covering the interface panels. 

“Open up,” he ordered, and Starscream didn't have any choice but the retract the panel and expose his valve. 

Starscream offlined his optics and concentrated on his venting when two of Megatron's digits begun to stroke his valve folds. His initial reaction was to pull away from the stimulation but he canceled that and rocked against them instead. This was his least favorite part, being on display like this, but the stimulation was easy to concentrate on and a sufficient distraction. His intake opened up slightly releasing a shuddering ex-vent, and he received a pleased hum from the other. 

The flat of a well-warmed digit slipped past the fold and soaked in the lubricants seeping out of the valve rim. Starscream didn't want to look at Megatron's face but heard his amused chuckle.  
The seeker's legs shook and he cycled air quicker, even fully opening his intake to partake in it and held on to Megatron's shoulders for dear life. The feeling wasn't so alien anymore and the rocking became the default reaction to it as the rest of the interfacing protocols blinked online, and the charge already stored in his frame started to flood in the bottom of his midsection. 

The tip of the digits pushed past the rim and the first actual moan left Starscream. He tilted his helm back and arched his spinal strut, making a show of his restlessness he was trying to soothe in order to relax. The digit in him was mindful of its claw and didn't scratch but it was stretching, moving steadily in and out and not too gently either, but rubbing on nodes that sent thorny peaks of energy through his array. 

The second digit was a difficult fit at first and it made Starscream hiss through his denta. He wasn't yet wet enough and certainly not aroused enough to stretch naturally, and on top of that he couldn't quite find an angle where the invading digits wouldn't hit the walls but would slip smoothly along the passage. 

But even though Megatron might have been impatient and harsh he wasn't crude, so he waited until the seeker stopped hissing and gripping him like a vice and his movements against his servo became smooth swinging instead of snappy jolting. More lubricants were being released cycle by cycle and as the fingering became more enjoyable his commander became more vocal about it too. The steady rise and fall of his frame was accompanied with heavy venting, sighs and quiet little moans, and Megatron could almost forget about everything they were outside these dark private moments and get lost in the beautiful performance of sounds and movement before him. 

Small droplets of lubricant were dripping down his digits and onto his palm and it was almost time. 

Megatron moved his free servo in a caress-like motion up the shuddering seeker frame standing before him and tilted his own helm up as his servo went. The sight was gorgeous, his commander with offlined optics and open intake squirming in his hold. He reached up and put his servo behind the narrow neck and pressed the seeker's head down towards his own in order to kiss him. 

Their forehelms touched and Megatron leaned in, but on the last moment Starscream turned his helm to the side and rejected the kiss. 

Megatron withdrew his digits and maneuvered the seeker on his back.  
Starscream let out a high-pitched noise when he hit the berth and his optics snapped back online. The worried confusion in his face made up for the rejection and Megatron grinned at him as he loomed over him. 

“Turn over,” he ordered. 

Starscream didn't waste any time but obliged. He knew what was coming and pulled his knees under him without a command and rested his forehelm against the mesh. His processor was jamming and his frame charged and in need of overload, and now it was just a matter of time. This part never lasted long. 

A tip of a spike pushed against his valve folds and past them and Starscream twitched: He hadn't heard the interface panel retracting at all. He vented deeply and willed himself to relax.

Megatron was past all waiting and patience and pushed in with one smooth thrust. He ex-vented harshly at the firm squeeze of the seeker's valve, pushed as far as his thrust took it, pulled back and moved back in again. Their size difference wasn't overly great but considerable, and their interfacing was always a tight fit but that more wonderful. Every node was hit with even small movements and the charge peaked up rapidly, crackling between them and pulling labored venting and hissing grunts out of Megatron and shuddering choked-back moans out of Starscream. 

Megatron leaned over Starscream, ground against nodes deep in his valve and scratched his claws down the back of the slim frame under him. The wings fluttered and the seeker gasped and whined, seeking and clawing with his talons for support. He was truly an exquisite sight under him, knees apart, aft up and spinal strut bent, arms reaching far ahead and talons gripping on whatever they could reach. 

Starscream could feel Megatron's hot breath on the back of his neck and several confused warnings popped up at the same time as a sharp bolt of arousal rushed through his frame and into his worked up circuits, making him buck back against the spike inside him. He grit his denta and sunk his talons into the mesh. 

Megatron raked his servos down the frame and gripped the pelvic plates, straightened up enough to put his balance point better on his knees and started to make snapping harsh thrusts. Electricity crackled in the air, the scent of it spreading in the room and finally Starscream threw his helm back instead of keeping it buried in the mesh, gasping and whining. There was a buzzing burst of pleasure in Megatron's chassis that had nothing to do with interfacing. 

It would be over soon, soon he would overload, this couldn't last long – Starscream's processor couldn't piece together anything entirely coherent. He was no longer filtering any reactions but the mixture of whines and moans poured out of his vocalizer freely. 

“Starscream,” Megatron said the name for the first time, not in awe but accosting. “Are you enjoying your reward?”

The seeker was so far gone he couldn't find words to scrabble together at first, but after stuttering for a klik or two he managed: “Yes! Yes, I am!”

Megatron chuckled and yanked Starscream closer, making him loose the hold of his talons and left him laying on his faceplate. The seeker turned his helm to the side and now Megatron could see his heated face, intake gaping open and glassy bright optics staring at nothing. 

“Tell me how much you enjoy this,” Megatron prompted while picking up the pace of the thrusts of his hips, his voice rough and low, optics locked on the side of his commander's face. 

“ _A – Ah_ – Very much, Master! I am enjoying this very much – I love it, I love – Thank you, Master! Master, thank you!”

He was drowned by his overload then, frame spasming and crackling with released charge, his vocalizer shorting out and spitting out only static as his intake hung open, mouthing moans that didn't have a sound anymore. 

Megatron kept on thrusting, for once cursing his stamina when he chased his overload in a frantic pace while staring at the languid expression on the seeker's face and listening to his passive hitching grunts as his over-sensitive nodes were stimulated. It didn't take even a full cycle for Megatron to follow the seeker into the bliss, his processor blanking for a few pleasant kliks when he overloaded and the pent up energy drained from his systems. He draped over the commander, pressed his helm against the back of the seeker's neck while supporting his own weight with both arms against the berth. 

It was alright to stay like this for a moment as their frames cooled and neither one had the processor-power to think too much. But there was no denying that their interfacing was over now, their frames were cooling and as the temperature dropped the reality seemed to upload itself back on.  
Megatron pulled back and got up, and without one glance at the seeker on his berth walked across the room and into his own private wash-racks, closing the door behind him. 

Starscream knew it was time to leave and he summoned a burst of energy that got him up and carried him across the room and out of there despite his wobbly legs and cloudy processor. 

He stood in the corridor for a cycle and turned the events over in his mind. It hadn't been even a tad bit easier than the times before, and he felt oddly exposed in the cool air even though his panels were closed and he was technically decent. 

There was an uncomfortable stickiness behind his valve cover and some of the lubricants and transfluids had stained his inner thighs as well. He hadn't even opened his spike cover and faint hints of pressure were still there, and it made him sick. He was covered in filth and some of that seemed to have seeped deeper into his mechanics were they would gather rust. 

He decided to go back to Nemesis and visit the wash-racks to purify himself, and so Starscream headed towards the elevators and prayed to Primus he wouldn't run into anyone. 

After only a few cycles in the chilly air he registered a faint stingy pain that seemed to only get worse by time. By the time he reached the elevator the sting had spread and left a large area around its source tender and he turned to seek its cause.  
That was easily found on his left wing, where four sharp claws had left ugly cuts in their wake, and somehow that relatively small damage to his wing was worse than anything he had been through in the past several moon cycles on this wretched planet. 

He grit his denta and held back a sting of another kind, swallowing down whatever his turning tanks were about to send up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! I swear there will be a plot in the future chapters...
> 
> For this fic's existence please thank zinteyro, my room mate, who mostly did my coding homework and a powerpoint presentation I needed for a class and only asked some delicious dubcon in return. (He also beta read this. Thanks, bro.)
> 
> He liked this, but how about you? Please tell me in the comments!


	2. The breaking of the axle

**2\. The breaking of the axle**

 

The wash-racks were pleasantly empty and Starscream had them all for himself and all the time in the world. The cleaning fluid was a blessing upon his frame that had gone so long with nothing but superficial wiping – and not even much of that. He was certain he was going to be picking sand and mud and nasty organics from his gears for moon cycles but it also felt very pleasant to feel the biggest stains wash away and down the drain. 

The aches and itches in his frame were soothed as well and under the warm stream Starscream felt a strain leave him. The ghost of touch was more persistent than the mud and squashed bugs but eventually it faded away too, and after scanning the racks for possible interrupters he turned the stream on a softer setting and manually retracted his interface panels. The mixture of lubricants and transfluids hadn't thankfully dried up yet but some of it had turned into sticky clots that stuck on the array. The last traces of charge left his spike as he cleaned the equipment and for that he was grateful: Right now nothing could make him interested in any kind of stimulation what so ever. 

But no matter how long he stayed under the stream the sting in his wing didn't go away and there was no way he could reach to fix it himself. He let his forehelm clank against the wall. He would have to ask help for this problem and that wouldn't be pleasant.

 

As much as Knockout loved a good party he was always reminded of his duties the day after. Heavy overcharging and consumption of high-grade in one's tanks and fuel stream wasn't a good thing, and many members of the crew felt that the next morning. Knockout was busy with the slow, sluggish line of crew members dropping by the med bay all morning, all asking for a charge balancer he then provided like a conveyer worker. 

He was bored out of his mind with the repetitive work, but some time in the early noon he got a visitor he had not expected back this quickly, and his day became more interesting. 

“Commander! Some party, eh? To be honest I didn't take you for a heavy-charger, with all your conservative posturing and whatnot,” Knockout chatted away as the very gloomy and visibly irritated air commander strolled in the med bay. The last time Knockout had seen Starscream was when he had provided the seeker with a t-cog transplant, and then he had been gone again almost instantly when he had onlined after the operation. 

“Yes, yes,” Starscream scoffed at the chit-chat. “I require some medical assistance, Doctor, so let's keep the chatter to a minimum.”  
He wasn't a tad bit happy to be there, growing unhappier klik by klik and not afraid to conceal it.

Knockout knew when to keep his opinions and jokes to himself so he just smirked. He was already reaching out for a balancer and a container full of energon with added minerals, but the strange look Starscream gave him made him still.

“What?” Knockout asked, a balancer already in servo.

“You won't be needing those,” Starscream drily said. “I'm not post-charged, you assuming snob! My wing is aching.”

Knockout had to suppress a grin at the insult that in his processor sounded more like a compliment and gestured the seeker toward the medical table, where the other hopped on with practiced ease. 

“It's the left one,” Starscream said and lowered the injured wing to Knockout's reach. 

“Let's see that one then,” Knockout replied and peered down at the wing. The damage was easily found and simple to fix, but also suspicious-looking and so suggestive that he couldn't help letting a small chuckle escape him. 

“What?” Starscream snapped with a frown, and Knockout smirked at him.

“Why, Commander! It _was_ quite a party, wasn't it? I take this little souvenir has a fun story behind it, hm?”

Starscream pulled a deeply insulted face and his frown deepened, some denta was bared and his vents gave a harsh puff. 

“Quit your lewd comments this instant! That is _none_ of your business and you _will_ treat this professionally and discreetly without uttering a single word of this to anyone or Primus help me I will find you and extract your voicebox with my bare talons!” he spat in a sudden burst of fury and with so much acid in his tone that Knockout was rendered speechless for a klik. 

The doctor recovered relatively quickly and raised his servos in a calming gesture. “Wow there, Commander Starscream,” he softly said, “I didn't mean to offend you, I was just curious! My apologies. Now, let's see that wound, shall we?”

For a while Starscream stared at him with narrowed optics and nothing but venomous suspicion in his gaze, but finally he seemed to remember he was in need of assistance and settled down. The sour frown stayed, but he lowered his wings again. 

“Very well then, but keep your comments to yourself!” he ordered and pointedly turned his helm into the other direction. 

Knockout decided silently that this had to be kept professional and agreed in a neutral tone before taking a careful hold of the injured wing and inspecting the damage there again. There were four tears close together and it was crystal clear that it had been a clawed servo that had done the damage. The cuts were neat but apparently also deep enough to both need more tending than self-repair was capable of providing and causing enough pain to make the seeker who usually preferred welding his wounds in private to seek help. 

“It was wise of you to come. Self-repair nanounits would have taken care of this but also probably left a nasty bump. I can fix this and promise you your aerodynamics won't suffer,” Knockout noted. “How much does it ache?”

Starscream pondered this for a moment. “It stings and the pain radiates onto the whole wing. Not much, but it's sore and it throbs.” 

“I see. The wounds are likely deep enough to have bugged the sensor net and the warning notification keeps getting sent over and over again,” Knockout explained as he gathered his tools. “A seeker's wings are quite fine systems under the surface, aren't they?”

“Yes, they are. Precise instruments with optimal design and extremely fine-tuned settings,” Starscream answered, chassis swelling with pride. “Not that a grounder like you would understand the significance,” he added, and Knockout gave an amused little smirk and rolled his optics when the seeker looked the other way. 

“I do have a practical understanding of basic physics, grounder or not,” Knockout mentioned, “besides I have done frame work before, also on flyers.”

For one reason or the other this seemed to interest Starscream, even if it was only because he wanted to focus on anything else but the work being done to his wing. The doctor was operating on the damaged metal with various small pincher-like instruments and bending it back to shape, and on a tray next to him was a machine with a small engine, pumps, tanks full of thick liquid and at the end of a metal tube a tool that resembled a drill but instead of a cutter it had a hollow pipe. The seeker seemed a bit nervous about being on the operating table. 

“Really?” Starscream prompted.

“Yes, really,” Knockout confirmed as he worked. “I know I don't appear like it but I can be very professional if I want to. I have tuned flight equipment, upgraded frames into more aerodynamic and lighter ones and even made upgrades from grounders to flying alt modes.”

Starscream snorted. “And still didn't get one of your own.”

Knockout chuckled. “No, that's not my thing. I mean, the speed must be amazing but I like the challenge of navigating roads and the hard ground under my wheels.”

“Navigation in the air is a challenge, too,” Starscream noted a bit sourly and the medic knew he was walking on the thin line between conversation and argument. In order to keep things civil and his servos steady, he decided to play nice: “I'm not saying it isn't. I'm not comparing the challenges of our alt modes in difficulty, I'm simply acknowledging they're different.”

Starscream seemed to accept this answer or at least didn't want to pick a fight about it, and remained quiet. Knockout gave him a smile and turned to tap on the machine on the tray to his left. 

The machine – a stapler it was called – hummed to life and the pumps began to move and steam started to rise from it as the almost liquid mixture of nanites and synthetic compounds processed of energon was heated up and fed into the metal tube. 

“Please lie down on your back and remain still,” Knockout said as he pulled a chair under himself and picked up a scalpel-like instrument with a wide flat side and a dull cutting edge. 

Starscream did as he was told and laid down presenting his left wing to Knockout, who against his expectations didn't make a comment about the situation. 

The medic simply picked up the drill-like filler of the stapler, brought it to the first cut on the wing and spread the thick liquid on the wound. With the trowel he spread it evenly, scooped up the extra and applied it to the next cut before bringing the filler to it as well. In this manner he treated all four cuts and the thick mixture cooled down and solidified rather fast. 

Soon Knockout was done and he turned the machine off. “There you go, Commander,” he said, got up from his chair and walked to his console, opening a new log.  
Starscream got up from his place and hopped down from the table. His wing felt warm and a bit stiff, but pleasantly numb. 

Knockout had his back turned to him and kept typing but gave him instructions none the less: “The filler keeps the self-repairs in line and you should be perfectly fine in four or five days. It doesn't affect your flight so go ahead and go out as you please, but be mindful of yourself. Come back in five days and I'll smooth that wing for you and it'll be as good as new!”

Five days was a reasonable time and the filler covered the wound well. It wasn't anything Starscream couldn't explain away easily if it came to that. Not that anyone besides the nosy gossiping doctor would care. 

“I will. Thank you, doctor,” Starscream muttered and turned to leave. He was almost out of the doors when Knockout called after him from behind his console: “Commander, one more thing!”

Starscream huffed impatiently but turned to look over his shoulder anyway. Knockout was still filing his logs and making adjustments to his schedule, but gave him a sideways look.

“In case you change your mind and want to talk about it, my office is open,” he said. His face was neutral without a trace of sarcasm or mockery but with all the indications that he meant what he said. 

Starscream rolled his optics but couldn't press himself to say anything stingy back. 

“Thank you, but no thank you, doctor,” he called out offhandedly, turned his back and walked out. 

*

The next days came with plenty of surprises and events that kept them all on high alert. It was just their luck to fail to offline even one single Autobot even when they blew their base into little rocks the size of a standard bot's fist. 

Only Optimus Prime remained still out of sight and Starscream had a growing feeling the Prime would resurface like he always did and thus affect Lord Megatron's mood in unpredictable ways. He didn't dare to voice these doubts to anyone but the more he pondered on them the more believable they seemed, and he dreaded the moment Megatron would find out about the Prime's likely survival. 

The only thing left to do was to act swiftly and hunt down the scattered enemies and win some points in Megatron's favor. All the mechpower they had was directed to tracking down the Autobots. Starscream did his own part by snapping at his subordinates and flying search missions. 

Flying, though. Starscream had discovered a whole new level of love for flying. If his trine had been assigned on the Nemesis with him he would have taken the feeling out on them by showering them with affection while boring them to termination with endless monologues on how the wind and cold air felt against his plating, how wonderful it was to soar in the seemingly endless space and cycle freezing air with low oxygen levels in his vents. Not even Skywarp could have pulled his mood down about flying again. 

The sweet sensation of going through transformation must have been one of the best sensations during the entirety of his functioning period. Machinery had reformed, plating glided through the familiar routes and seams shifted when his new t-cog had initiated the proper programs in his processor, and apparently Knockout had oiled the long-vacant gears while he had operated on him because there had been no discomfort in the transformation, just the marvelous feeling of stretching and things sliding back into place as he became whole again. Starscream felt fondness towards the doctor, too, since it was to him he owed the perfect experience of his first flight. 

Then Knockout and his little search party dragged Shockwave in and things started to look bleak again. The intelligent, perfect Shockwave with his abomination of an invention was suddenly Megatron's new favorite thing ever and all hard work and sacrifices Starscream had done were brushed off like dust from the hood. 

And it was so unfair too! Shockwave hadn't done anything in teracycles, just been sulking in his creepy laboratory on Cybertron, playing with his toys and tampering with the laws of nature. Even if his inventions were useful they weren't anything Shockwave wouldn't have done anyway, unlike Starscream who had done various unpleasant things in the not-so-distant past just because he was told to.  
And did Megatron care? Of course not. His appreciation for his second-in-command was spiraling down in a worryingly fast pace and when one plan didn't go as it was supposed to and a risk didn't pay off, Starscream found himself at a serious disadvantage again. 

Shockwave was stealing the little favor he had managed to charm for himself, and it looked like Megatron wasn't as ashamed or regretful about their recent encounter as he was supposed to be according to Starscream's previous observances. 

The air commander was in a thoroughly foul mood when he on the fifth day visited medbay again to have the treatment on his wing finished. He was regretting the decision to have it fixed now. If he had made a show of clumsily patching it himself and trying to keep it hidden from others Megatron would have noticed it and probably felt bad about the mark he left. It would have been there to remind him of the moment of weakness he had allowed himself and guilt tripped him for weeks, stretching Starscream's time as an appreciated member of the crew. 

“Good day, Commander!” Knockout greeted him with a grin, that slagging fragger. 

Starscream merely muttered something indistinct before hopping on the table and lowering his left wing. 

Knockout didn't waste any time and already had a buffer in servo, turned it on and started to work. The buffer wasn't really a loud tool, but loud enough to be an excuse for silence. Knockout could clearly see and sense that the seeker was in a bad mood and if he was to go and try spark a conversation he would get only insults and acidic spitting in return.

Not that he minded the silence that much. He liked his job and working on Starscream's wing was the treat of the day. The carefully maintained neutral expression on the commander's faceplates was a tell-tale sign that he enjoyed the grooming. 

When the synthetic layer had been removed Knockout set the buffer aside and examined the whole wing by servo. He started by taking a gentle hold of it and moving it up and down on its joint, then returning to the location of the cuts and tapping the area with the tips of his digits.

“Any discomfort here?” he asked, feeling about the healed cuts and the surrounding plating.

“None,” Starscream answered him, staring ahead. 

“How has flying been?”

“Normal.”

Knockout hummed approvingly and felt the whole wing up, from tip to the bottom curve and fumbled at the main connector joint just to be sure. His touch was perfectly clinical, almost impersonal even in its thoroughness, and Starscream had to admit he hadn't given that much credit to the doctor.

“You're being professional today, doctor,” he commented with faint amusement. 

Knockout scoffed and rolled his optics. “I am a professional medic, commander,” he noted. “Have you seriously thought all this time we've known each other that I go around, molesting my patients? You wound me, really.”

Starscream had to smirk at that one. “Well, I don't suppose _everyone_. Just the ones who are your type.”

Knockout gave an exaggerated exvent and scoffed. “Really? _Really_? I can assure you I have some morals. And do you really think me so desperate I'd lower myself to inappropriately grope my patients? I can assure you I need only my natural charm and good looks to get anything I want.”

The last bit was delivered with a low suggestive tone and a quirky optic ridge and Knockout knew he was testing the seeker's patience good time, but instead of a scolding comment he got an open and almost shy look before Starscream suddenly became very interested in the ceiling. 

“I don't think that's an appropriate subject during an appointment, doctor,” the seeker said without actual blame, but a shiver of almost-amusement. 

“Well it was you who brought it up,” Knockout said grinning and let go of the seeker's wing. 

Starscream pushed himself off the table and back on his pedes again. He turned his helm into a difficult angle to take a look at his wing and wouldn't you know, it was perfect again with no trace of four claw marks ever being there. The metal was smooth and shiny after Knockout's careful attendance and Starscream's one last trump card was gone. 

“Any follow up with this one, doctor?” he asked. 

“None. It's perfectly healed now, just as I promised,” Knockout replied, clearly pleased with himself and his work. 

Starscream didn't bother to comment on the doctor's manner and turned to leave, but a servo on his shoulder brought him to still. He turned to look at the servo on him before raising his gaze to Knockout's face. 

“I managed to get some really good high-grade in my possession some time ago,” Knockout began. Starscream frowned but didn't have time to voice a question before the other continued: “I wouldn't mind terribly if you wanted to have a cube or two with me. It might do you some good even. You might get something off your chambers, like the story about your definitely-not-happy-party-souvenir.” 

Starscream's frown turned into a snarl and he narrowed his optics at the doctor, who raised a calming servo. 

“I really shouldn't have that bottle anyway so it needs to be drunk, and if I do so alone who knows what kind of weird comm calls I might make in the long cycles during the night, so it would be almost your duty as my commanding officer to accompany me,” Knockout explained away while holding Starscream's gaze, steady and calm like trying to convince a wild thing he was not going to hurt it. 

Starscream didn't appreciate the condescending mannerism nor prying on his personal matters, especially those he wasn't in any way proud of.

“I told you I don't want to talk about it! I haven't changed my mind just because you buffed my wing,” he hissed, shook the servo off his shoulder and turned to leave. 

“Well I'd welcome you anyway!” Knockout tried to call out after him but wasn't sure if he heard. 

The seeker was a difficult one to associate with since one had to peel their way through several layers of suspicion, paranoia and insecurities. Starscream was socially a real piece of work but not hard to figure out as a personality: He behaved and reacted like other bots his type would. But Knockout really didn't like the implications of the strange claw marks, but as much as he would've liked to get to the bottom of that, if the seeker was not going to let him, there was nothing more he could do. The thought left him with as bad a mood as Starscream had been in when he had arrived. 

*

With their only prisoner in the wind and no sign of the Autobots Starscream felt his chips running low - and fast. Shockwave and his blasted cool intelligence and careful preparations were threatening his post and it seemed there was nothing he could do about it. 

He was grasping at straws and he knew it when he kept scanning and searching through the endless depths of the data net, but even one single useful crump of information could elevate him in Megatron's eyes. That was all he wanted, that was the only goal throbbing in the back of his processor, accompanied with a copious amount of bitterness: The highest place was rightfully his!

He had given his all, frame and spark, and he was getting nothing in return.

The mindless beast was the hardest thing to even begin to accept. Shockwave and his abomination were the new rising stars among the ranks and Megatron's current favorites. As much as Starscream loathed to admit it, he saw it was true. By now he knew Megatron well enough to recognize the signs of the warlord's good mood – so rarely caused by him or shining to his general direction – and even if he had a tendency to lie to himself, this was too painful a truth to not to see. 

And the beast had wings. It shouldn't add insult to injury as the beast's wings were nothing alike the ones of a seeker, but it did. Another flyer had taken the praise that belonged to Starscream, an artificial unintelligent monster with no sense of grace, and its monotonic creator was stepping over the commander with the leverage the monster provided. 

And Megatron was falling for it willingly, that brute. Starscream chewed on his glossa until he tasted energon. He should have know that by now, but no: Megatron's collected mannerism and his natural talent with force and command made it easy to forget that after all he was only a gladiator of Kaon and no matter how big an army he led or how many worlds he'd destroy or conquer that one little fact wouldn't change. He had been created a simple mech for the mines and later for the murder pits, and no matter what title he took or how shiny his armor was, in his spark Megatron would always be that. 

And Starscream would forever be a seeker of Vos, a flyer of great skill and precision, a fine creature capable of all sorts of things. Not that anyone aboard Nemesis would be bright enough to appreciate that. He was better than all of them put together, and the dim-sparked rustbuckets just didn't realize that. 

He knew this and reminded himself of it often, but it seemed like Megatron could sense whenever Starscream was briefing himself and made sure to humiliate him to remind him of his place. 

Lately Starscream even briefly considered the humiliation being an acceptable price for some attention. 

After his shift and on his way to – not sure where to but away from Megatron and Shockwave and that cursed mindless abomination of a pet of his. The map of Nemesis's corridors had a long ago been imprinted into his processor and it was available in a nanoklik, but the time in between this and the last time he had calmly walked aboard the ship and been more or less welcomed there made the experience a bit strange. He kept his servos behind his back and clutched with one on the other while flexing his talons, a slight sign of nervousness he had learned to hide. 

So deep in his thoughts he was that he didn't notice someone had followed him from the upper deck and now reached him, jumping into his view and fitting his steps into his pace.

“Hello, Commander! Why the grim face?” Knockout asked with a smile. 

Starscream didn't like it when Knockout smiled, least of all when he smiled like this. The expression was bright but far from earnest because of his dim gaze and suggestive optic ridges. He was difficult to read with his mouth line and his optics sending mixed signals.

“Because I wear an expression corresponding with my mood, Doctor,” he answered with a huff. “And I am miserable.”

“Oh?” Knockout answered. “Why so? Come on, you're back home, we have reinforcements and a new creature to do our dirty work! How are you not happy about this?” 

Starscream gave a heavy exvent. So typical of the carefree doctor to not notice the obvious things, no matter how clearly in front of him they were. They came to an elevator and Knockout stepped in with him. 

“Why would I be happy about this?! Can't you see what's going on right under your optics?!” Starscream demanded. Of course he didn't, he didn't even have to look at the doctor's confused expression to know to specify: “It's Shockwave. He's plotting to get in Lord Megatron's favor and just waiting for a chance to overthrow me!”

They arrived on the cabin deck and stepped out together. Starscream didn't look where he was going anymore but despite that Knockout followed him. 

Knockout pondered on Starscream's words for a klik or two but remained disbelieving. “Shockwave? Really? He doesn't look like a mech with ambitions. Are you sure you're not just imagining things?”

Starscream's wings shuddered in offense and he rolled his optics. “Easy for you to say, Knockout!” he snapped. “No one wants your post!”

They turned from a corner and with his grand gestures and his boiling bitterness Starscream missed Knockout's minimal shaking of a helm and the roll of his optics. 

“That's because my post requires qualifications on medical field,” Knockout dryly remarked. 

“Exactly, no one cares about that,” Starscream dismissed the other with a exaggerated roll of his helm. “My post, on the other hand, is a highly desired one!”

Knockout sighed minimally under his breath, not convinced. “Really now? And Shockwave would want this position... why, exactly? He isn't a leading type, and on top of that he already is where he wants to be.”

Starscream stopped like he had hit a wall, and the confused Knockout stilled too if a step later. 

The stunned seeker turned his face towards him fully, an infuriated and slightly betrayed expression on his faceplate. “It was you,” he said, emotionless and ominously calm. 

“I was what?” Knockout asked, crossed his arms and raised his left optic ridge. 

“It was you who brought Shockwave back here! This is entirely your fault!” Starscream accused and pointed at the other. 

Knockout narrowed his optics at him in disbelief. “That's a tad bit far fetched, Screamy,” he said. “Even for you. Seriously, I went to supervise a mission and Shockwave just happened to pick up our signal. It's not like I personally went to look for him!”

He held Starscream's gaze challengingly for a klik or two before he turned to the way they had been going for a good while and started to walk again. Starscream's vents gave a sharp puff of steam in an attempt to relieve tension and after a moment of consideration he followed Knockout, speeding his steps until he reached him. 

“And really, if anyone should be worried about how Shockwave's going to affect our dynamic it would be me,” Knockout said, stretched and crossed his servos behind his helm. “He and I are on the same field after all, and as much as it hurts to confess, I'm no match for him in science no matter how brilliant a doctor I am.”

“And humble too,” Starscream muttered. 

“Ah, but with my virtues humility would be a waste,” Knockout said grinning and suddenly stopped. “Well, here we are.”

Starscream was confused. “Where?”

Knockout gave him a smile that could only be described as endearing, but there was the strange gleam in his optics again and that balanced it out. 

“This is my cabin,” he casually said and turned around to tap in the key code. The door shuffled open and the doctor turned back to the seeker. “Care to come in?”

Starscream hesitated. It had been an easy offer to refuse in the medical bay but now this close to the location he was suddenly tempted to accept. His servos swiftly disappeared behind his back and his talons grabbed on each other, but he couldn't refuse the temptation to lean a little bit to the right to get a little glimpse on Knockout's quarters behind him. The light was off so he didn't see much, just a faint glow of a computer screen, a chest and possibly an outline of a berth. 

But if he was to accept the invitation, Knockout would no doubt be prying into his secrets in order to find something to gossip about. 

“I still have that high-grade,” Knockout casually mentioned. “Come on, commander. Let's tilt a cube and relieve some tension.” 

Knockout's voice was innocent enough but also smooth and soft, and so some madness highjacked Starscream's processor and he nodded. Knockout's smile was bright when he stepped aside and gestured the seeker into his quarters. 

The bottle of high-grade the doctor had stashed away was a big one and the liquid glowed sharp purple, not tainted like dark energon but natural and pure. Knockout poured them both generously full cubes and offered the other to Starscream right away before he hopped on the pedepost of his berth. Starscream eyed him doubtfully, and Knockout pointed at a tall ladder-like stool behind him. The seeker pulled the stool under him and sat, content with the little modest distance between them. 

Starscream took a long sip from his cube and noticed only then how much he had needed some relief. 

“Even with the risk of sounding cheesy I'll say it's nice to have you around again,” Knockout said. 

Starscream looked at him over his cube and tilted an optic ridge. He wasn't sure how honest the doctor was being so he didn't know what to answer, but apparently Knockout wasn't hoping for an answer anyway. 

“I have someone to chatter with again and that's nice, now that you have concluded your field trip around Earth.” he continued. “How was it, by the way?”

“The planet?” Starscream asked, and the other nodded. “Dismal. Absolutely horrible. No wonder this place is crawling with organics, no mechanical life form could possibly lead any sort of decent life here! Everything is muddy and dusty and no matter how much I scrub, I can't get all this... stuff out of my gears.” He gulped down the rest of his cube and savored the familiar numbing buzz that spread through his sensors. 

Knockout nodded and let out an unimpressed puff. “I'm sorry I asked,” he muttered and reached to refill the seeker's cube. “I for one like it here. Organics are fascinating!”

“Well there might have been more room for fascination if I had had the luxury of a full tank every once in a while,” Starscream said. So typical of Knockout to dismiss any worries and threats in order to get excited about something. The damn grounder enjoyed the roads of this mud ball and would have probably tried to function on the fuel humans pumped into their vehicles. 

“Yes, well... You do have a point in there,” Knockout admitted with a shrug as he poured himself another cube. “And some things are better in theory. I for one am very grateful for a local invention called Google Earth which allows me to go and look at the places on a computer screen instead of physically going there. Imagine me in a jungle for instance. No roads, very dense flora everywhere... It'd be a disaster.”

Starscream rolled his optics at Knockout's so-called hobbies. At this rate the doctor would miss this damned planet when they'd finally leave it in their rear-view mirror, but he didn't want to go and straight-out insult a mech who was kind enough to share his high-grade with him. 

It had been a long time since anyone had shared a drink with him let alone offered him one, and he would have been lying if he had said he didn't appreciate some friendly company every now and then. And the stuff Knockout was once again pouring in his quickly emptied cube was actually good, not some home chemistry project the medic had encountered during the long years of war and shortage.

So typical of Knockout to focus his work motivation on getting his servos on the good stuff.

Starscream drank quickly, chasing an escape route from the unpleasant reality and responsibilities, and even though Knockout was a whole cube-full behind him, he generously kept the seeker's cube full.  
“A whole lot of stuff happened to you since you were booted out,” the doctor idly commented. “I mean how exactly does one lose an internal organ?”

Starscream's servo stilled with the cube on the edge on his intake and he lowered it again. He made a disgusted face and exvented harshly. “I don't want to talk about that.”

“Fair enough, it's not like you have a habit of explaining your injuries to your trusted doctor anyway,” Knockout pointed out and emptied half of his cube into his intake. There might have been a faint edge of hurt in his voice. 

Starscream stared the other down for a long moment before he emptied his cube with one go. 

“Why are you so interested in this anyway?” he demanded, his voice a little bit slurry. The high-grade in his system was overcharging him fast and it had already made him all tingly and his processor slower, but he wasn't going to just start spilling well-kept secrets. If anything he was prepared, defenses up and ready for a fight.

Knockout on the other hand wasn't even half as much overcharged as Starscream was and lacked all visible signs of an overcharged bot: he was steady and coherent, if a tad bit more emotional than regularly. 

“I am interested in your well-being, believe it or not,” he answered and frowned when Starscream narrowed his optics at him. 

“If... If you were, truly, you'd leave this matter be! Like I... Like I told you to before!” Starscream argued back, struggling with keeping his speech flowing. He reset and reset his vocalizer but overcharge kept it slightly glitching and it couldn't be helped. Starscream put the empty cube down and decided he'd had enough for now. 

“And what if you don't know what's best for your own good?” Knockout threw back with a voice strained by frustration. 

“And what makes you think - that you do know!? Any - Any better than me! You don't - You don't even - “ he didn't know how to finish the sentence so instead he stood up and made up for it with an intimidating posture and grand gesturing. He wasn't perfectly steady on his pedes but the situation was manageable, and he felt a rush of satisfaction when Knockout, still sitting down, looked up to him. 

Knockout set the cube aside from his servos and crossed his arms across his chassis. “Well, you don't make it easy but I do care. If for nothing else then as this ship's medical officer I am obliged to.”

“Like - Like you care about anything but erratic for – forms of entertainment and your cursed paint job,” Starscream hissed back.

“Oh, low blow,” Knockout muttered sarcastically and rolled his optics. He exvented heavily and tried to calm down a bit before he tried again. “Look, Starscream... It's not difficult to put two and two together. I have a pretty clear picture of what went down that day and I'm just trying to, you know - “ he gestured vaguely, “trying to say you don't need to be ashamed. Or alone.” 

All Starscream's defenses crumbled on the floor like the fastenings of an armor had come loose, and the seeker was left emotionally bare and vulnerable. Suddenly he looked very frail and lanky as he tried to shrunk into himself. 

Knockout was almost equally stunned but by Starscream's reaction. He hadn't ever seen the other like this, and the look in his wide optics was a foreign mixture of shocked surprise and fear.

“You... You know?” Starscream asked, voice hoarse and quiet.  
Knockout made a tilting gesture with his helm. “Well... Yes, sort of. It wasn't difficult to figure out.”

For a moment it looked like Starscream was about to smash himself on the floor, so dangerously he swayed on his pedes. But just when it looked like he was going to lose his balance he stumbled forward, spun around with a surprising amount of control and heavily slumped down to sit on the berth next to Knockout. 

“You... Know. You... You...”

“Yeah, I know. All the buffing hasn't slowed down my processor,” Knockout tried to joke, but Starscream didn't seem to hear him. The seeker just stared ahead at a spot on the floor and stayed absolutely still like frozen in his place. His EM field was always kept close but now it was completely shut off, and even in Starscream's case it was unusual to cut oneself off of others so completely. 

Knockout exvented and rubbed the back of his helm awkwardly. “Look...” he started, but the seeker interrupted: “You must be really disgusted by me right now.”

Starscream's voice was quiet and feeble like he was apologizing for existing. 

“I'm sorry you found out. I wouldn't want to associate with... someone like me,” he added listlessly, wings drooping and optics glassy. 

“Hey, it's not that horrible,” Knockout tried to argue. He didn't know how to comfort the other or even if he should, but at least Starscream deserved to know he didn't have that low an opinion of him. Anybot would deserve that much. 

“It's just... Umm...” He ran out of words quickly. He hadn't been in a situation quite like this before and Starscream was by nature a difficult bot to deal with, and the slight overcharge in his system wasn't really helping either.

“It's a – a pathetic situation,” Starscream said and almost chuckled. “I... I used to... I used to have some merit of my own. Skills. But... But what is a seeker without their trine? Without... without a trained team? Just a... a useless drone, that's what I am.”

The words were brutal and cutting but the voice that spoke them dispassionate and defeated, tired beyond belief and uncanny in Knockout's audials that had been used to sharp attitude and pride. It felt downright wrong to witness the seeker reduced to this state, and Knockout's spark spun with an anxious need to make it better somehow. 

But he couldn't find the right words and Starscream was able to go on and sink deeper into his self-disgusted confession. 

“I don't... I don't even recall how... how this started and why,” he sighed. “But I suppose... It's the only thing someone like me is good at... anymore. I am... I am...” the words became strangled, like painful shrapnels in his intake, and his optics shuddered offline in shame. “I am just a... disgrace... tainted... used... failure...”

“Oh, hey, come on now,” Knockout interrupted and shuddered in discomfort. He didn't know what else to do so he extended an arm carefully and put it around the seeker's shoulders. “Cut yourself some slack, Starscream. It's not... _that_ bad. No one has made it this far without getting a bit of dirt on their plating.”

A sharp, bitter laughter burst out of Starscream's vocalizer and he let his helm hit Knockout's shoulder with a clang. “A bit?” he repeated, mockingly. “You call this _a bit_? The Decepticon second-in-command is just an automatic pleasure drone. This is what I have worked for, all this fragging time...”

“Don't talk about yourself like that,” Knockout huffed and squeezed the seeker against his side with a bit too much force to be kind. His servo clenched into a fist where it lay against the seeker's chassis. 

“And why not? There's no lie there,” Starscream chuckled and turned his helm into a strange angle so he could look Knockout into optics from his position against his side. 

“I'm just... just... tainted... And nothing.”

Knockout wasn't happy to hear any of this and pressed his mouth into a displeased firm line.  
“Just... Just stop already.” He held Starscream's gaze but didn't manage a glare, just a pleading look.  
For his amazement Starscream shut his mouth and just looked back up at him with a strangely passive face without any trace of his usual act of intimidation or malice. His optics were dim and a little bit sad, his expression open like it never usually was. They were both still in silence, then Starscream's gaze shifted to take a quick curious glance at Knockout's mouth, and in that moment the medic became suddenly very aware of how close they were. 

Starscream's talons grabbed a firm hold on the edge of the berth making a faint but sharp screeching sound, and he tilted his helm slightly to the side before taking another quick look at Knockout's mouth. 

The tense seriousness of Knockout got a new note as he registered the looks he got and at the same time felt the seeker's frame against his side like it burned. The unpleasant, awkward conversation had stolen all his attention and he hadn't noticed until now how Starscream leaned on him, his overcharge making him wobbly even when sitting down, or how warm he was or how he tender hum of the jet engine felt on his plating. He shivered involuntarily. 

“He can go straight back to the pits and never return,” Knockout muttered quietly. Starscream's mouth was slightly parted and he couldn't tear his gaze away from it. “You are beautiful.”

A strange little noise that resembled something between a reset sound and a squeak came from the back of Starscream's intake. He craned his neck and leaned in to have a soft taste of Knockout's lipplates, and the medic let him. 

Starscream's optics powered down and offline when he pressed his mouth against Knockout's, and Knockout followed the example soon after. The kiss was experimental like it wasn't sure if it was permitted to happen, and, in its uncertainty, soft and warm. 

Their mouths parted with a quiet wet sound, and Knockout onlined his optics. A warm feeling completely unrelated to the overcharge was spreading through him as he tried to zoom in on Starscream's face. The seeker's optics were still dark and his expression open, and Knockout took it as an invitation to lean in again. 

He caught Starscream's mouth into a new kiss, a deeper one but as gentle as the previous, and used his arm around the seeker's shoulders to pull him closer while trying to shift himself into a better position. 

Starscream moved easily as he was prompted like he was seeking something, maybe going for the warmth, tenderness or acceptance Knockout was offering. He opened his intake a bit more and uttered a small sound into the kiss, his servos letting go of the berth and reaching out to sneak around the grounder. 

They hung on to each other tight and slightly rocked back and forth on their place. Starscream's hazy processor could hardly handle what was going on, only that it was warm and nice and that he enjoyed it. It was comfortable right here being held against someone and being kissed senseless, getting warmed up and being kept safe for a change. Signals were finally getting through the interference of the overcharge and several protocols were sluggishly blinking online. He let his right servo wander from behind Knockout's neck and stroke down his chassis, talons fumbling on the transformation seams and biolights and coaxing the grounder to sigh into the kiss.

Meanwhile Knockout was experiencing the best moment of his existence in a long while. He let his servo slide down the seeker's narrow back and settle around his pelvic plates. He entertained an idea of lifting Starscream into his lap, but that would have been needlessly testing the limits of the heavily overcharged mech and he left it as a wistful little fantasy, simply caressing the light plating and the tip of the spinal strut with his digits. 

He relished in the caresses of the wandering servo on the front of his chassis and shivered when the sharp talons accidentally scratched him a little while their kiss grow bolder and deeper, and encouraged the seeker further.

Starscream's cooling fans clicked on and their whirling sound filled the room. A strong wave of heat rushed through him and he pressed himself against the grounder even more firmly than before, insisting. Knockout's light caress on his pelvic plating became a kneading rub that coaxed a shuddering moan out of the seeker. 

His talons scratched slightly on the arch of Knockout's hip, slipped further down and gave a trembling tap on the interface panel there. 

Knockout's servo covered his quickly, took a gentle hold of his wrist and pulled it away and up against his chassis. He broke the kiss and nuzzled against the side of Starscream's faceplate.

“Not now, pretty darling,” he said. “You're overcharged.”

Finally Starscream's optics blinked back online, even though they were dim and struggled to focus. He pulled his helm back a little to take a look at Knockout's soft and slightly apologetic smile and just looked at him with a confused frown. Then a trace of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he gave a breathy, intoxicated giggle before slumping heavily against the other mech's chassis.

“You're such a good person,” he muttered, sighed and barely had time to register a warning of an emergency shutdown initiation in his HUD before his processor started to power down all systems and shut itself down.

Knockout hurried to catch the passed out seeker and hoisted him up on his berth where he lay unconscious. He shook his helm and laid down next to him, absentmindedly wiping his mouth with the tips of his digits. 

“You're one messed up bot, Screamy,” Knockout sighed at the seeker. “I really hope you won't try to murder me in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was the second chapter and the beginning of the actual plot. Let the drama begin!
> 
> Thank you for taking time and reading this! If you liked it leave a kudos and tell me your opinion in a comment if you please.


	3. Lucky number

**Chapter 3: Lucky number**

 

On the dawn of the next morning Starscream felt like he had been struck by a lightning. He felt trembly and twitchy all over and he was sure more than a few of his circuits had been fried. At first he didn't even dare to online his optics or move for he feared all his coils and wires would come undone if he did. After a couple more moments awake he realized to his embarrassment that he hadn't flown through a thunderstorm and crashed but was instead experiencing a well-earned setback from last night's overcharge. It wasn't his style to overdo it like this but nevertheless, there he was. 

Where, he wasn't exactly sure though. He kept his optics offline and his frame still in fear his tanks would eject the fluid that had charged his systems if he stirred, but even from his current position he knew he was laying on a berth and not on the floor. His faceplate was mushed against the cushion rather comfortably, the place was warm and he was nicely enveloped in a calm, friendly EM field – 

There was someone with him in the berth. Starscream's optics snapped online. 

Recharging next to him on his front and with his face turned towards him lay Knockout, and as Starscream stared at the doctor next to him he also noticed the medic had a servo casually tossed over him, warming the base of his spinal strut. 

For a full cycle Starscream had an inner debate between minding his painful state of charge imbalance and taking care of the socially awkward problem by either expelling the intruder in his berth or removing himself from the strange one – whichever option applied – but he didn't have time to come to any conclusion before Knockout stirred from his recharge and his optics came online. 

For a klik the doctor looked just as confused as Starscream had been when he woke up, but then he smiled.

“Good morning, Commander Starscream,” he greeted, then sheepishly added: “Please don't murder me for this. ”

Starscream narrowed his optics and frowned. “Do I have a reason to murder you now?”

Knockout made his best attempt at shrugging while lying on his front. “Well, no. But you do have a tendency of jumping to conclusions, and I can definitely assure you that this is not what it looks like.”

That Starscream could have deduced without help. He didn't feel sore or sticky in a way interfacing usually left him, so in all likelihood they had just gotten completely hammered and shut down in the same berth, nothing besides that. 

Except that a string of hazy and heated memories pushed through Starscream's cloudy processor and claimed to be actual things that had actually happened last night. The memories were mostly sensory information, a warm intake and a pair of lipplates against his, caresses on his frame, building charge, his own voice moaning into Knockout's intake – 

The effects of the memory stream were probably visible on his faceplate, because Knockout's smile morphed into a self-conscious one and he laughed nervously.

“Well... There's a little bit more to last night than just overcharging,” he admitted. “I think you recall some.”

Starscream's expression was blank but he felt his plates heating up. He couldn't believe what he had done, but there was no denying his own memories. This must have been one of the dumbest things he had pulled in a while and it didn't even include an immediate threat to his life!  
Before he could think about it any more he sprung up from his place – and immediately regretted the sudden movement. His tanks gave a warning groan as their content was sloshed around, and he had to slam both his servos on his intake while hastily canceling emergency purge commands. 

Knockout turned over and sat up too but with considerably more grace than the seeker.

“Wow there, Starscream. Go easy on yourself,” he said and reached out to lay a supporting servo on his shoulder, but Starscream jerked back and glared at him.

“Don't touch me!” he snapped.

Knockout's servo froze in mid-air. The mech looked slightly hurt but nonetheless lowered the servo back on the berth and actually looked apologetic. Starscream hadn't expected that. 

“I'm sorry,” Knockout said and sounded shockingly sincere. “I know I shouldn't have let things go anywhere last night. I didn't want to reject you when you were in that mood but I drew the line when you tried to 'face with me and - “

“Stop, stop stop,” Starscream groaned and hid his face in his servos. He didn't want to hear it said out loud, his own memories gave him enough of the burning sensation of shame on their own and on mute, thank you very much. The cold, hard realization that he might have just ruined his relationship with the only actual friend he had aboard the Nemesis was also just beginning to dawn on him. 

Knockout listened to him and shut his mouth.

“You're telling me that you just... listened to my overcharged rambling and then decided that the best way to offer friendly support was to stick your glossa into my intake?!” Starscream demanded while trying his best to fight down the swirling nausea. 

Knockout squirmed on his place. “I wouldn't say that... There was barely any glossa.”

“Not the fragging point!” Starscream snapped back. 

“I get it, I get it, I'm sorry,” Knockout hurried to answer and hung his helm in an awkward display of shame. He had feared this would be the result of the moment of bliss but it hadn't felt so bad yesterday. Also he had clearly underestimated his own overcharge as he had let the situation go further than was wise. 

“Damn right you should be,” Starscream snarled and hopped off the berth despite his miserable state. His tanks gargled noisily and he hunched over when a sudden wave of nausea flared up. He grabbed on the edge of the berth and vented deeply for a moment in an attempt to tame his malfunctioning frame. 

Knockout slid down to the floor and came around the berth with a slightly worried expression. He approached the seeker cautiously. “Go easy on yourself,” he said, as needless as it was. “Your charge is out of balance after yesterday.”

“Oh, really?” Starscream answered, voice dripping sarcasm. “I wouldn't have figured that out without your medical expertise, doctor.”

He wasn't looking up to the grounder and with that security the doctor dared to roll his optics. He might have been the one wrong here but it didn't mean he was going to tolerate everything Starscream threw at him, and besides he was making a bigger number of the incident than it truly was. It had been just a kiss for Primus' sake! Nothing more. 

“Yes, really,” he said. “I'd have to go to the med bay to get the charge balancer but I think I have a container of high-mineral energon somewhere around.” 

He approached the hunched over seeker and tried to help him sit back down on the berth again, but when he reached out and took a hold of his arm Starscream yanked himself free and glared at him.

“I told you not to touch me!” he spat.

Knockout made a frustrated face at him and raised an optic ridge. “Oh, come on, Starscream. It's for your own good, I'm just trying to help you out.”  
He took a hold of the seeker's arm again and tried to make him sit on the berth, but Starscream, ever the stubborn one, pulled his arm free once more. 

“And I don't want your help! Just leave me be and don't talk to me or anyone else about last night ever again! I have no interest in being anyone's idle conquest!” He was working up some proper anger and looked like he was about to go on one of his rants. To stress his meaning Starscream made a sharp swiping movement with his servo like he was trying to force Knockout to take a step back. 

The was a sharp shriek of metal on metal, and when Starscream pulled his servo back to himself there were long curly strings of red paint clinging to his four talons. 

Knockout stared down at his chassis that now had four thin but very visible scratches and exvented heavily in annoyance. He supposed he deserved that but damn if he wasn't going to mutter about this to himself with strong words later. 

He looked back at the seeker. “Feeling better? Now would you let me help you?” he demanded and didn't care if he sounded irritated. 

Starscream was still bent over himself a bit but now his optics were wide and he looked more like he was trying to shrink away than hold down nausea. He didn't say anything, just nodded, but his gaze jumped nervously between the four claw-marks on Knockout's chassis and the doctor's stern face. Knockout in turn was very pleased when the seeker didn't resist anymore but accepted his supporting hold and obediently sat on the edge of the berth.

Knockout started to go through the various boxes he had stashed around his cabin, looking for the high-mineral energon for charge imbalance. It didn't take long for him to find it, ironically stored in a box with two more containers of high-grade like they went servo in servo by default. He picked it up, snatched the cube used last night and returned to Starscream, who sat exactly where he had been left and peered up at him from under his optic ridges. 

“Down a couple cubes of this stuff and it should make you feel better in a few moments,” Knockout said as he filled up one and handed it to the seeker. “It's not as fast as with the balancer but it'll have to do for now. Think of it as first aid or something like that.”

Starscream didn't say anything but did as he was told, and in a few moments the cube was empty. Knockout filled it again, but the second one Starscream didn't down as quickly. Instead he eyed the damage he had done – minimal and clean but noticeable – and nervously licked his lipplates. 

“I... I'm sorry about that,” he mumbled, nodding vaguely towards the grounder's chassis. 

Knockout couldn't help the stunned expression on his face. He hadn't ever heard an honest apology from Starscream and had thought he never would, at least not when the seeker was sober, but there it was anyway. 

The look in Starscream's optics was dull and maybe held a trace of regret when he took a quick glance at Knockout's face before tilting the second cube and downing the liquid. Knockout just looked as he did so and realized that he hadn't responded anything yet.

“Well... You're forgiven, I suppose,” he said and shrugged. He considered his next words carefully and tried to read the seeker on his berth, wondering how much serious talk he would tolerate before the defenses would go up and turn the calm into aggression again. 

“I won't go around boasting about you or anything,” he started. “And really, have you ever heard me use anyone who I've been with to show off?”

Starscream stared right ahead but tilted his helm in thought. “I suppose not,” he admitted. 

“That's right. Even I have some decency left, not to mention that those who have a habit of bragging about their partners tend to also suffer a shortage of them,” Knockout said and Starscream even smiled at the comment. 

“Besides it's not like I'm looking to have a fling with you,” Knockout added, feeling bold. He put his servos on his pelvic plates and leaned his weight on his left pede. “I value you more than that.”

Starscream turned his face to him. He looked doubtful but also seemed to be fighting down a smile that threatened to take over. The sight was rather amusing, and Knockout felt his spark swelling. 

“Thank you for the energon,” Starscream said and carefully stood up, steadier now. “I'm feeling better, doctor.” His body language was clearly indicating he wanted to leave the situation and Knockout saw no reason to hold him back, so he stepped back and allowed the Commander to make his way to the door. Unexpectedly, Starscream lingered in the doorway.

“I... Thank you for the high-grade,” he said and threw a look at the grounder over his shoulder. “And for your time, too. Have a good day, doctor.”

Then he was on his way before Knockout had time to respond in any way and the door shuffled shut. 

Knockout was left alone to his thoughts and he didn't know what to really make of the happenings of this morning. He was almost grateful his shift was starting in a megacycle since it would get his mind off the seeker and their little moment of sweet weakness, but the questions would be back soon enough. 

In the corridor Starscream put as much distance between himself and the doctor's cabin as fast as he possibly could in his current state and headed towards his own quarters thankfully not very far away. His slowly rebooting memory banks bombarded him with memories from last night and the more he remembered the less he liked it. It hadn't only been him who had initiated the kiss but he had also enjoyed it, and just thinking about it now filled him with infuriating buzzing sensations resembling overcharge but somewhat sweeter.  
And he had rambled some really pathetic emotional stuff at Knockout, making a complete fool out of himself.

Not to mention the doctor knew about the incidents between him and Megatron. 

On top of everything he _knew_.

Starscream practically ran into his own cabin and locked the door behind him. He leaned against it and hid his face into his servos, groaning. His life was taking a nosedive, he just knew it. The overcharge had offered him a nice escape from the recent events and how screwed up things had gotten aboard the Nemesis lately but now everything was coming back to him with the added bonus of the momentary lapse in judgment with Knockout, all resulting in a mixture of shame and regret. It burned in his gut, like acid, corroding through all his machinery before disconnecting his spark from his frame and resulting in his deactivation – and as he thought a bit more about the miserable dead end that was his life, he wished it really would. 

*

Autobots regrouped and Optimus Prime appeared again – with upgrades. The scales were tipping again and a new goal appeared in the horizon. 

Knockout found himself reporting to Shockwave instead of Starscream. He didn't particularly mind that even if Shockwave's unnatural, cool composure annoyed him, but the new arrangement also meant he wouldn't get easy opportunities to talk to Starscream. And Primus knew the current state of their social relations needed some urgent attendance. 

Instead of doing something about it Knockout found himself mostly alone in his lab, making emotionless and formal reports to Shockwave who remained just as secluded as he had when stranded on Cybertron. And on top of that Project Predacon became their new priority. 

A new scavenger hunt. Oh joy. 

Knockout was glad he hadn't moved any of his stuff away from the Nemesis, but if one was to believe the displeased muttering in the corridors, not everyone had been that smart. In the medical bay Knockout tended to make small talk while welding bots back together, and apparently it wasn't the lost property that pissed the crew off the most, it was the missed opportunity to live somewhere else than aboard a ship. Very few Decepticons were even remotely used to being comfortable, but teracycles upon teracycles aboard a crammed ship were finally taking their toll. 

All in all the mood aboard the Nemesis was down, and the giant predacon trampling about wasn't helping matters. A couple of Shockwave's precious logic wires must have come loose if he thought cloning more of those beasts was a good idea. 

And Starscream was avoiding him, Knockout was certain of this. 

The entirety of the seeker armada went through the medical bay after a mission, all more or less scratched and dented and leaking energon. Knockout tried to evaluate every one of them even though he couldn't possibly personally treat them all and thus had to rely on his nursing staff to help him, but the Commander managed to escape even the check-up. 

Knockout couldn't bring himself to blame Starscream. After all, they had known each other for quite some time and Knockout knew what could be expected of this particular mech in the moment of crisis and uncertainty. That didn't lessen his frustration, though. 

Later he found a medical report update filed by one of the nurses so Starscream had been treated (superficial damage only) and thus Knockout didn't even have an excuse to go and hunt him down, but at least the Commander hadn't prioritized his ego above his health. Yet. 

For several days Starscream didn't speak to Knockout directly and Knockout let him have his space, but instead of trying to mend their relationship after the rather awkward episode of overcharged affection the seeker seemed to have plenty of time to fawn over Megatron.  
He was back dancing around the warlord with his mischievous smiles, fine gestures, bowing and stupid, fluttering wings, desperately trying to win over Megatron's favor, and all Knockout got was an off-hand snarky comment when the seeker was trying to boot everyone around him overboard from between himself and the warlord. 

The difference between the Starscream he had witnessed sitting on his berth just a few days ago, badmouthing himself and drowning his sorrows in high-grade from this smiling, scheming Starscream fussing around Megatron was so great that Knockout even doubted if the seeker had been truthful in the first place.  
From what Starscream had confessed to him in the dark megacycles of the night Knockout had visioned his relationship with Megatron as a cruel one where the warlord was shamelessly taking advantage of his second in command, but how they interacted in the daylight looked more like an actual relationship winding down before its inevitable termination with Starscream as the one hanging on the leftovers of what had once been.  
Though at the same time Knockout couldn't even imagine those two ever being actual lovers, not now, not before and certainly not in the future. 

But it mattered not what was true about the situation and what wasn't. Knockout still despised to look at Starscream near Megatron. 

When the predacon managed to fetch the fossilized eye Knockout patched up two very quiet and embarrassed eradicons but the Air Commander didn't show up. His patients were so silent Knockout didn't even try to joke with them but smoothed their dents and cleared the glitches from their systems in an awkward silence and wondered in the back of his processor where Starscream had gone to. 

With a sinking feeling he recalled the lost armor and the responsibility Starscream had over the mission, both of which indicated that he was with Lord Megatron, trying to explain himself and the loss of the relic. Whatever the “explanation” would include Knockout didn't want to ponder on and risk working himself up in righteous anger or jealous rage. Starscream would take care of his own business and he'd leave it at that.

He concluded the repairs and declared both mechs functional again but told them to go easy on their welds and dented plates for a few days so their frames and programming would have enough time to run the new parts in. He was just about to dismiss them from the medical bay when he had an idea.

“Hey, you two,” Knockout said, and both eradicons turned to look at him. “Where's Commander Starscream? He was with you, wasn't he? Why hasn't he come to be repaired?” 

The eradicons exchanged a look and something transmitted between them, and Knockout's hunch that they knew more than they let on was confirmed. 

“Well... He didn't suffer much damage, doctor,” one of them answered, shrugging. “Just some scratches. He can take care of those himself.”

“Yeah, plus he's the Commander,” added the second one. “It's not our job to ask questions.”

Knockout narrowed his optics and crossed his arms around his chassis. 

“Anything else you can tell me?” he asked, voice silky, soft and alarmingly smooth. “Completely off the record, mind you.”

The eradicons seemed nervous when Knockout put his ominous “mad doctor” -act on: Both of them knew they'd have to come back sooner or later and then they'd end up on the doctor's operating table, and neither one wanted to risk falling in the margin of error of the “perfectly” safe medical procedures. 

“Well... Commander Starscream did do a full systems scan on the hangar deck,” the second eradicon said. 

“And said he didn't want to bother you any further,” the first one completed. 

Knockout raised an optic ridge. “He said that?”

The eradicons traded a nervous look once again but then nodded in unison.

“His words, not ours,” the first one explained. “Commander Starscream is an eccentric mech.”

“Yes, he is,” Knockout sighed and rubbed the side of his helm. He could feel an irritation-prompted ache approaching. “You are dismissed.”

The eradicons didn't have to be told twice and they almost fled from the medical bay and the drama between the officers, and Knockout was left alone. He cursed under his breath the second missed opportunity to speak to Starscream and try to repair the damage done to their friendship that wasn't founded on solid ground in the first place. 

He had missed two opportunities already, both of them ones that should have flowed about naturally. Being the only doctor aboard a ship full of bots prone to wreck themselves you'd think it would be easy to get a moment alone with anyone, but then again this was Starscream he wanted to have that moment with, and if the seeker was good at something it was slithering free of seemingly inevitable situations. 

He needed to chase his chance instead of waiting for one. That damned winged bundle of emotional incapability should appreciate the lengths Knockout was ready to go for their relationship.

There was probably a betting pool on if Shockwave recharged at all or if he had perhaps found a way to do it while maintaining some basic researching or filing functions. Whatever the case, they had the coordinates of a new predacon relic on Earth in no time.  
Knockout still didn't like the plan to clone more these prehistorical beasts – humans had produced a whole trilogy of movies on why this was a bad idea – but when Lord Megaton issued an order a good Decepticon went and didn't question it too much.

Naturally, both of them being officers, Knockout happened to be on the upper bridge of the Nemesis at the same time as Starscream to receive new orders. Starscream, that blasted glitch, didn't grace anyone else with his attention but Megatron, who in turn appeared like he couldn't care less.  
It was painful to watch, but when Knockout got the mission instead of Starscream he felt a rush of juvenile joy and threw a grin to the seeker whose expression was so perfectly like the one of a stubborn patient that Knockout wanted to plug a ruststick into his intake. 

The mission was an incredibly bumpy ride.  
At first it was like stealing a treat from a minibot, then it was slightly annoying with the two fleshies having their marital problems in his trunk but as irrational as it was, Knockout found he envied them a bit: at least they were communicating, just like he wished he would be communicating with Starscream. Damn that winged glitch. The communications were down and Knockout was fairly sure it was somehow Starscream's fault, that vengeful little drone.  
He shouldn't have called him a screamer right before leaving for a mission. 

The Autobot reinforcements were not a part of the plan but in a race Knockout was on his home turf as certainly as he would be in an operating theater and besides, he had a headstart on them. However, he wasn't going to risk his tailpipe for a lousy piece of a fossil no matter how much Lord Megatron wanted to have it, and fully planned on saving his own hood before staying to fight two Autobots by himself. 

The restoration of the communications was truly Primus-sent and bless Soundwave's skills with groundbridging – it ended up being a good day and he knew he was going to get a new chip on his shoulder for his deeds. 

Turned out it had been the predacon that had scrapped the communications. Or at least that was Starscream's story, and he was desperately trying to maintain it. Judging by the extension of the damage done Knockout was ready to believe it had been the beast that had caused it but as certain was that its bolting was Starscream's fault. The seeker had no idea how to handle things that didn't understand language – not that he was willing to deal with those who did.

Knockout managed to reach Starscream in the hallway of the Nemesis on his way away from the bridge.

“Commander!” he called out to the seeker and hurried his steps to catch up with him. 

Starscream froze in place with his wings hiked up. He didn't try to escape but didn't turn to face Knockout either, simply stood still like a trapped creature waiting for its final fate. 

“Commander. I've been meaning to talk to you,” Knockout said when he reached Starscream. 

The seeker didn't turn to look at him but looked at the floor, avoiding all non-verbal communication. “Is that so?” he said with a thin voice.

“Yes, it is,” Knockout verified needlessly and continued: “And nothing sets your priorities in order like going on a field mission. The threat of sudden termination is a great motivator.”

Starscream hung his helm and shivered a bit. He was clearly skittish, his pedes tapping the floor and ready to make him flee, but he tried to remain as calm and still as possible like it was his last and only defense. “I can imagine. Is there something that you want?”

“Just... Uh...” Knockout started and frowned. He hadn't really thought this through with all his conflicting emotions. When on the mission he had cursed the seeker for endangering him with his clumsy mannerisms and inability to admit failure, and before that he had spent the last couple of weeks feeling desperate, frustrated and rejected while being the only one of them who actually wanted to fix the damage done, but now that they were actually talking none of that mattered. Actually, Knockout was feeling curiously light and serene inside. Must had been the afterglow of racing and being still online.

“I've really wanted to speak with you, that's all,” he said after relocating his vocabulary and syntax banks. “This is my third attempt, actually. You've been avoiding me.” 

“It's a busy ship,” Starscream said in a vague defense. 

Knockout scoffed. “Yes, but that doesn't mean one doesn't come to visit the doctor,” he noted, and Starscream hung his helm even lower if possible with his wings drooping down in a sad response to getting caught. 

“Look, Starscream... I know you've been avoiding me,” Knockout said, starting anew and sounding as calm as possible. “I know you're probably embarrassed or something and I wanted to come and tell you you're making a fuss out of nothing. I'm bored to termination without your rants and I want us to be... whatever we were before a bottle of high-grade. I don't know, friends?”

It was a weak finish but he had said what he had wanted to and that was the best he could do. 

Starscream stared at the floor some more but finally his helm gave a little twitch upwards, then he lifted it a little and turned towards Knockout until he finally lifted his burning red, beautiful optics to look at the grounder under his ridges, almost coy. 

“Friends?” he asked, unsure. 

A really dumb little smile strained on Knockout's faceplate, his vocalizer was temporarily muted and he just waved his servo in a rewinding motion, wishing he could spit out something semi-intelligent.  
“Or... uh... Friend is an awfully ambiguous term,” he chuckled. “We could, you know, just start to chat again and see where that takes us. If that's what you want, it's what I want, we can just... You know... cruise on?”

Starscream narrowed his optics at him in a way that told he was internally debating if Knockout had managed to scramble up his processor. Then the previous melancholic blank expression was back.

“The third attempt, you say?” he asked. 

Knockout nodded. 

Starscream managed a smile, but quickly dropped his gaze down on his servos. He was picking on his talons again, and on a whim Knockout reached out took a hold of the seeker's servos with his own. Starscream looked up with a confused expression, and Knockout didn't really know what he had supposedly planned on doing now, so he just shrugged. 

“That's not good for you,” he said. “You should appreciate yourself a bit more and take better care of yourself.”

Starscream stared at him for a long moment. He didn't yank his servos free but let them be held by the other mech. 

Knockout dared a gentle squeeze. 

“Come with me, let's go refuel together” he said. “You don't _have to_ be alone.”

Starscream stared down at their servos and frowned lightly as he pondered on the proposition. For a few times he glanced left and right in the corridor like they were doing something they shouldn't, but his gaze always returned to their servos, and he didn't let go. Finally he gave one small nod of his helm.

“Very well, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Knockout... Some project you have caught for yourself!   
> I really like Knockout as a character by the way, he's such a genuine and casual nice person (with loose morals). I like to think he's emotionally really mature even though he likes to play irresponsible.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading, I hope you liked it! If you did, kudos keep a writer going and a comments are our lifeblood.


	4. Chips on red

**Chapter 4: Chips on red**

 

In a military sense things were working out in Megatron's favor, but that was about it in the field of things going well. The return of Shockwave was an extremely welcome turn for him and the Decepticons in general since his skills were unique ones, but along with this one member another one had also returned. 

Starscream had proven himself useful every now and then – from Megatron's opinion that was when the seeker bothered to focus and didn't try to scheme on the side – but he was constantly balancing the fine scale of his trouble and worth, and now had once again managed to reset it. Megatron had allowed him back among his ranks simply because he was of more use to him even with his questionable loyalties and more harmful as a loose cannon running around and getting in the way. No personal feelings of his had affected the decision, but on quiet morning cycles like now he wondered if they should have.

Two main emotions Megatron felt whenever the subject of Starscream came up were annoyance and frustration. All the provocation those feelings needed was the mention of the seeker's name or merely his presence, and that alone should have been a warning sign big enough to kick him to the other side of the galaxy and be done with it, but that was where the fine scale of trouble and worth came in. 

Starscream was the best flyer they had. He was one of the few Vosians left and, despite all his multiple flaws and failures, this alone gave him a certain status among the eradicons, and he was a good commanding officer.  
On the other hand he was an extremely poor subordinate, a coward and a traitor, and it wasn't a rare occasion when Megatron considered transferring Starscream somewhere else, away from him and his quickly thinning patience, but then again he would get paranoid if he couldn't keep a watchful optic on the seeker, just in case. Other feeble and weak-minded fools in the scattered Decepticon ranks might fall under Starscream's sleazy charm, and dealing with rebellious fractions was a waste of time and resources, so it was near mandatory to keep Starscream by his side where the seeker's pride could be disciplined regularly. 

Megatron had a very solid morning routine that had remained the same since his early gladiator days. Wherever he was, be it in the dark mines of Tarn, in the humid and narrow catacombs under Kaon with the sand of the arena under his pedes or aboard a gigantic warship under his direct command, the morning routine remained the same. The routine included testing and maintaining all his joints by bending and stretching, a slowly executed series of melee move combinations and simple, yet precise, practice swings with a sword. 

If there was one thing Megatron missed from the Pits it was the feel of a good sword in his servos. A simple and brutal weapon, but pure and beautiful in its unapologetic one-note existence. 

The slashes of the sword took on a steady rhythm and Megatron tuned in to it with his whole being, with not only his frame but also his processor and spark, too. The state he entered was an almost meditative flow, and his thoughts streamed freely.

The war was drawing to its end, Megatron was certain of it. He could feel it deep in his internal structures, the finally approaching victory that was almost in his claws. With the predacons in the front of his troops he would finally hunt down the remaining Autobots, and when he was done with them he'd send a word across the galaxy, once again gather his loyal followers and conquer a new home for them all. 

Not even Optimus with his power of a Prime and fine weapons could resist the brutal strength of the beasts. Megatron swung the sword in a wide sideways slash. He wanted to be there when the Prime would finally fall. He wanted to separate Optimus's helm from his frame. He would finally fulfill their shared destiny and have the closure he had desired for so long.

Peace time would come soon. It was a pleasant thought. He would take the rule that was rightfully his and begin his long reign, surrounded with loyal followers and subordinates who believed in the future of their people and in Megatron as its bringer. Soundwave would remain by his side, ever silent, ever loyal, ever watchful. 

The sword cut the air, repeating the sideways slice again and again, coding the precise strike into the very core of his hard drive. Repetitions made perfection. 

He wondered how many of his most loyal officers still functioned and how many of them would rush back to his side when he called for them. He had been absent for a long time, and in the warlord's absence the sparks of his followers grew treacherous, this he knew for a fact. Maybe some reminders were in order: some discipline and a few examples. Those he would make out of the challengers that would certainly come. When one rose into superiority over others, there were always challengers. It was a lesson taught back in the Pits and never forgotten.

Truly, it was a shame that Dreadwing had thirsted for the vengeance of his sparktwin so much it had triumphed over his beliefs and made him disobey his direct order. The twins had been in Decepticon elite without a question, and now they were both gone – both more or less due to Starscream.

The sword swished down in a cutting strike on the first step forward, the most basic advancing move there was.

Starscream. The seeker alone was responsible for so much discord and destruction among their ranks it was difficult to weigh if he was more use than trouble. His off-putting personality would be enough to out-weigh true acts of war heroism – if the seeker had performed any – and a few mediocre tactics and even fewer good plans aside, he hadn't done anything for the cause in a long while. The commander was a coward, a liar and just his presence and way of existing annoyed Megatron. He tried to remind himself why he still had Starscream around in the first place.

His processor smoothly provided him with a memory file of Starscream pressed against his front, then of Starscream in his lap, then of steady calculating talons caressing him just right, then of the seeker under him, wings trembling and intake panting.  
Megatron never lied to himself. He let the memories come and go away. 

The sword struck again. Repetition made perfection. Code into the core. 

Another memory uploaded: Starscream obeying his command and hurrying to please.  
That was a rare sight and it would have been a very pleasing memory to return to if it had any other merit to it, but no. It was a deeply dishonorable one, a sword with two cutting edges that Megatron repeatedly tried to seize by servo, resulting only in hurting himself.

Another file. Starscream rejecting his kiss.

A step forward, the sword slicing through the air. A step back. Repeat. 

There had been high-grade involved, but Megatron didn't let that fool himself. Overcharge would have been an easy excuse, but one he deeply despised. It was nothing but a way for cowards to slither away from responsibility, and besides two or three cubes weren't even enough to overcharge him properly. 

Starscream had charm and a good bluff, that couldn't be denied. His bluff was easy to call and his charm superficial, but they worked well enough in the safety and secrecy of the warlord's quarters, and the results were now Megatron's to deal with. It was Starscream who had manipulated him, but it was he himself who had went along with it. And besides, interfacing was a considerably less frustrating form of communication with the seeker than words and violence, though results remained short-lived and he always regretted the moment of weakness that made him agree to it. 

Starscream rejecting his kiss. He wounding Starscream's wing for vengeance.

Interfacing was a tactical move – for both of them. It was a whole new level of communication, a battle but one without losers, it resolved rage and drained them both of disappointments of recent setbacks.  
It was mutually beneficial.  
And each time Megatron swore it was the last time. It never held. 

*

Knockout was in the medical bay analyzing the molecular structure of the synthetic energon they had managed to seize from the Autobots. The research seemed to be a dead-end but he handled the material he had the best he could since technically it was his field. He had never cared for it much, although. The laboratory work with microscopic subjects was slow and tedious and absolutely not why he had chosen the medical field in the first place. He liked frame work: surgeries, crafting upgrades and doing repairs, no matter how basic, and this had absolutely none of that. 

He was bored, so when his internal comm line buzzed it was a blessing. 

“Hello?” he answered.

“Knockout,” said a familiar voice. Starscream was still keeping him at an arm's length and mostly just commed him every now and then, but at least they were talking again. 

Knockout suspected Starscream still had trouble with looking him in the optic. He couldn't really blame him. 

“Yes, commander,” he answered, playing the professional part in order to lure the seeker back to familiar ground. “How can I help you?”

“I – uh – I'm not exactly sure,” the seeker admitted. “It's not an official matter.”

“Well then, I better keep my voice down and encrypt this message log then,” Knockout said with a hint of sarcastic humor and grinned down at his work. The medical bay was vacant of patients so he was able to grin like an idiot while chatting on the comm line without attracting suspicious gazes. 

“Not that kind of unofficial,” Starscream impatiently scoffed. Knockout wasn't sure what Starscream thought he had meant but it was funny nonetheless. 

“I just – What are you doing right now?” the seeker asked and made a clear effort in sounding calmer. 

“Oh, same old, same old,” Knockout said lightly, switched a sample under the scope and filed away his notes on the previous one with a tap of a digit. “I'm in the middle of an open-chassis surgery here, rerouting this poor soldier's main energon lines and trying to stop the leaking. I don't actually think this poor fellow is going to make it but eh, I'll try my best.”

“What?!” 

Starscream's startled shriek made Knockout laugh out loud and lean back in his chair. 

“I'm kidding! Totally kidding,” he assured the Commander on the line and sniggered. “I'm doing some very boring lab work. Please tell me you have something more exciting in store for me.”

Starscream sputtered something irritated mostly to himself but also sounded somewhat relieved. Either that, or he wanted something and couldn't afford to keep snapping and yelling like he'd like to, Knockout reminded himself. Starscream was an ambiguous and unpredictable mech to deal with, and their friendship or association wasn't exactly founded on mutual trust and respect. He knew a very personal secret about Starscream, but wasn't sure that gave him an upper hand of any kind in their interaction. More likely it made Starscream trust him even less than he regularly did. 

What a piece of work he was. A pleasant piece of work on occasion, but damn. 

“Well... I don't know about – pfft – _exciting_ , as you put it, but...” Starscream begun and halted almost right away, seeking for words. He sounded cautious, like he was playing a bad hand in a round with high stakes. “But I'd like to request your help with something.”

Knockout's spark sank. More work, then. Probably something shady and dangerous with no pay off, all the possible profit ending up on Starscream's side.  
“What do you want?” he asked in a sigh, already thinking about ways to decline. 

“Or... Well, I don't suppose I need help in the purest meaning of the word,” Starscream added and sounded downright nervous. 

“Please just spit it out, Commander,” Knockout said, “so I can decide if I'm actually mad enough to go along with it.”

The seeker gave a long, exaggerated exvent that seemed to be coming oddly far away when heard through the internal comm line. “It's almost the end of the beta shift,” he said. It was true. The solar cycle was drawing near its end, and with that the beta shift Knockout was currently working in. He wondered if the Commander had looked up his working schedule prior to comming him. 

“What of it?” Knockout asked. 

“Would you accompany me to the seventh deck's washracks?” Starscream blurted out quickly and went quiet. 

Knockout had to play that back to himself for a few times. He was disbelieving at first, but the better the request and its implied meanings sank in, the wider his smile grew. It really was a good thing that the medical bay was empty. 

“Why, of course I will,” he answered as casually as he could manage. 

“Very well then. I will wait for you after your shift ends,” Starscream said with a trace of relief in his voice, and the line went mute again. No goodbyes, no see-yous. So rude, but at the moment Knockout couldn't bring himself to care. This just might turn out to be an exciting evening after all. 

Well, it didn't. 

Half a megacycle after his shift Knockout made his way to the deck with the washracks and found Starscream waiting for him, an open kit with wax and oil in servo, looking slightly nervous and vaguely agitated. 

Knockout approached him with certain caution he had internalized after receiving several irritated slaps and scratches on his paint job, but when Starscream spotted him the anxiety seemed to drain from him and his wings perked up.  
“Knockout,” he said in a greeting tone, and Knockout thought he detected a hint of surprise.

“Surprised to see me, Commander?” he wondered. 

Starscream shrugged. “Maybe. I thought you might have gotten the wrong idea from my proposition... Since I asked you here.”

Knockout crossed his arms and tilted his helm. “Yeah, to shower with you. What about it?”

The seeker gave him a look that screamed he had expected that but wasn't happy about being right. He needlessly raised the kit he had in his servo for Knockout to see. “It's about a thing I can't really do myself that well and is really supposed to be performed by a trine member... See, you helped me with my wing once and although you're not a seeker...” he hesitated for a moment and reformatted his approach, and the medic waited him out. Starscream sighed. “Well, it's not like I have my trine available, or any other Vosian for that matter, so... Would you come in with me - ” his helm jutted towards the wash-racks door behind him “ - and help clean my wings?”

Knockout stared at the seeker and weighed the proposal. It wasn't what he had thought he was going to get, but maybe being a stand-in for a seeker was a compliment in Starscream's mind. Then again, “what was there to lose” was the next question, and his mind pulled a blank on that. 

Knockout shrugged. “Yeah, alright. Whatever.” 

The indifferent tone of his answer either didn't bother Starscream or flew right over his helm, because his wings sprang up in excitement again and his chassis swelled a little as he stood upright.  
“Good. Follow me,” Starscream said, turned towards the door and beckoned Knockout after him. 

The air in the washracks was humid and full of sounds of running fluid and the whirl of pressurized air. There weren't many crew members there during this time of the solar cycle and those few who were didn't stare at the officers passing them. 

Starscream looked for a suitable spot and Knockout just followed him. Finally in the back the seeker spotted a place to his liking, a corner with three shower spots and benches, separated by a wall from the narrow and shallow tub no one ever used. He set his kit down in front of the bench and reached to turn two of the showers on before sitting down and looking up at Knockout expectantly. The cleaning fluid rushing from the two pipes was clear and hot, and steam filled the cubicle fast. 

Knockout sat down on the bench far enough from Starscream that the tip of a wing didn't touch him. He felt the stream on his back and his vents sucked in the cleansing steam as he watched the seeker who leaned back under the spray of liquid and stared ahead. Knockout didn't have any idea what kind of a situation he had managed to maneuver himself into or what the same situation was like in Starscream's mind so he didn't want to speak first but waited instead. 

It was comfortable under the hot stream and he certainly didn't complain about the company. Starscream was such a beautiful sight next to him. Completely ignoring him and just staring at the floor he was like a picture behind a screen, not even existing in the same world with the grounder, liquid splashing on his wings and breaking into millions of flying droplets. A web of smaller streams ran down his frame leaving the metal shiny in their wake.

“I don't know what you imagine of me now,” Starscream said suddenly, and Knockout almost missed it for all his staring. 

The medic's gaze snapped up from somewhere around the seeker's pelvic plating to the side of his faceplates and for a moment he thought Starscream was referring to his keen observing, but the seeker was still staring ahead. “What I'm...?” Knockout said, trying to prompt something more specific out of the other. 

Starscream sighed. “I just... I don't know how I got here, to this point of things,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “It's like... I played a game and thought I knew what I was doing, I had my trine behind me and I could play him, I played him well and slowly things got more intense... I placed higher stakes, I suppose, played a little risky and I... I just don't like pain, Knockout.”

He turned his helm suddenly to the other and Knockout froze in place under the troubled, burning red gaze. It was at the same time open and reserved, defiant and fearful, like he was doing a daring stunt and putting on a brave smile that had nothing to do with what he felt inside. It was the same look as on prisoners of war who dared their captor to do their worst. 

The medic didn't have any time to think up a comment before Starscream turned to stare ahead again and continued: “I thought I'll, just this once, just once and never again, offer up a substitute for the usual disciplinary methods, avoid the pain and move on. Then it would be just reset and restart again, play a little smarter next time and so on...” He rolled his shoulders and fluttered his wings under the stream. Liquid splattered around and the network of streams on the metal took on new forms. 

“I don't know how it got to this point.” His voice was barely above a whisper, the tone blank. “One day I just come online, something clicks and I'm stuck next to him, all my seeker's gone, my trine Primus knows where.” 

Now Knockout knew even less what to say, but on the other hand he doubted that he was supposed to say anything at all. He didn't know who the bots in Starscream's trine were and had never met them, at least not knowing they were Starscream's trine, and now was not the right time to ask.  
He turned over the new information in his processor. The incidents between Starscream and Megatron were some kind of hazardous waste from the constant power struggle between them, no real surprise there, but Knockout hadn't been prepared for the sudden rush of relief he felt at that. 

“It means nothing,” Starscream said and his helm turned to face the other mech again, his gaze hardened and his mouth pressed into a thin like. “He means nothing to me. _Nothing_. I want you to understand that.”

Knockout met his optics. “I get that,” he said and meant it. The relief in his spark turned a bit by bit into joy. It was a very disturbing experience but the reassuring smile came easily because of it, and Starscream reflected it faintly so to the Pits with guilt. “I've said it before, you don't have to be embarrassed. Life happens. I don't judge you or think any less of you, if you care about my opinion at all.”

Starscream leaned back on his place, directing the spray on the back of his frame instead of just his wings. Liquid splashed on his shoulder guards and ran down his front. The wings were out of the way, and Knockout dared to shuffle a little bit closer on the bench.  
Starscream's gaze darted up and down his frame as he registered the change in their position and allowed it. 

“Well... I care about your opinion more than anyone else's on this ship, and I don't give a damn about them,” Starscream said. 

Knockout chuckled. He liked Starscream's bitter sense of humor. 

“But there is one... other thing I asked you here for,” Starscream said and grew serious again. The forced open look was back in his optics when he peered up at Knockout from under his optic ridges.

“No matter how hard or often I scrub myself, I don't feel clean,” he said with a voice that sounded like the words strangled his windpipe. “And I can't even... I can't reach the back of my wings,” he added and shifted on his place.

“Okay,” Knockout agreed right away without thinking about it or letting the seeker finish whatever downplaying monologue he was coming up with. 

Starscream closed his mouth and didn't continue with his chattering. His wings fluttered again. His gaze on the mech beside him was steady for a moment when he evaluated him closely, then he dropped it and turned around, lifted his left pede from the floor and over the bench until he was straddling it with his back turned to Knockout. He lowered the wings until he could look over his shoulder, and the one visible optic watched carefully what the medic would do.

Knockout took the permission to come closer and moved right behind Starscream but did it casually in the same movement as he bent down to catch the kit the seeker had brought with him. There was not much to choose from, just one clean sponge and a can of foam wax – unscented, pure. 

The steam around them was white and thick and wrapped them in a puffy haze that moistened their vents, cleaning them from the inside as well. The rush of the shower was like a shield from the outside world, a steady background noise that allowed them both to function naturally and not become too self-conscious. It was hot and comfortable, and Knockout dared to inch a bit closer than was necessary. 

The wax foamed into bubble clouds on the metal, and when Knockout pressed the sponge against the wing and made a firm but slow stroke down from tip to base Starscream let out a long content sigh. 

His hard peering softened at first, then the optic dimmed and fluttered offline. The seeker let his neckcables relax and his helm hang, chin against his chassis. His venting slowed down and became deeper, and Knockout felt his spark spin in its chamber.  
He wanted to press closer, to lean against the slim back and nestle between the wings there, offline his optics, to only be close and feel. 

But he controlled himself and did what he was asked to, washing the seeker's wings carefully. He didn't want to waste all Starscream's wax on this one wash but it foamed a lot. Luckily it turned out he didn't need very much of it in order to cover every inch of the wide wings before him in it. He wiped each wing horizontally, carefully getting off every bit of impurity there was, real or imaginary. The wings raised and lowered lightly in the rhythm of their owner's venting, and Knockout learned fast to fit his movements in the same pace, lulling Starscream further into the calm zone he had reached. 

Knockout did a second round on the wings with slow circling strokes that wiped away the last traces of any lingering dirt and extra wax, but more importantly massaged the metal in a way he knew would send an almost intoxicating buzz through the sensory net. 

Finally Knockout dropped the sponge back into the kit and washed his servos under the stream.

“All done,” he muttered in the seeker's audio receptor. 

Reluctantly the seeker onlined his optics and raised his helm. Starscream felt more relaxed than he had in a long time, warm and comfortable all over. He turned to look over his shoulder at the uncharacteristically serious Knockout, who was nearly resting his chin on the back of his shoulder. The medic's optics were wide but dimmed down, his deep red paint wet and shining. 

Starscream arched his back and stretched his arms, leaning barely an inch backwards before his back came in contact with Knockout's chassis. It was an accident, but he stayed there. 

Knockout took it as a permission and leaned his forehelm against the seeker's shoulder guard. His spark was spinning wildly, bright and pulsing, almost burning. 

“How are you feeling?” he managed to ask the other.

Starscream hummed. “I'm good.”

Knockout smiled even though the other couldn't see it. He opened his mouth, words ready. “Starscream...” he started.

“Hm?”

His mouth was open, the words... What were those again? Dumb things that complicated everything, and neither one of them needed any more twists in their lives right now.

“It's nothing,” Knockout said. It really wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aah, a shower scene, a product of my long-past teenage-years as a weeaboo and my own culture. Regards from Finland where we bathe together. My beta-reader seemed to enjoy Starscream taking a shower, and I hope the image is pleasant for you all as well.
> 
> This chapter was particularily fun to write. I really enjoy Megatron as a character, and yes I have a headcanon he has a morning routine much like this one. Yoga á la Tyranny, complete with the murder practise. It is the Decepticon way!
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always! If you liked this caress that button with a heart on it to give me some love and/or leave a comment!


	5. Kill spin

**Chapter 5: Kill spin**

 

With Shockwave had come new arrangements in the chain of command, and nothing could have possibly pissed Starscream off more than that. Where was the fun in being the second-in-command if half your subordinates waltzed right past you and reported to someone else?  
At least he felt comfortable enough again to use his free time to complain to Knockout, and since the Nemesis was currently floating through a thunderstorm, he had a lot of it. 

“Will my torment never end?!” Starscream moaned as he paced back and forth in the medical bay. “At first I had to vie for Megatron's favor against that treacherous harpy, Airachnid. Now I must contend with Shockwave and his incorrigible beast!”

Only half of Knockout's attention was on him, but still, the medic smiled and turned his helm to give the other a calming look over his shoulder. “Well, look on the bright side, Starscream: At least one of them is on ice.” 

Starscream sighed and slumped. “Oh, how I would love to stuff Shockwave right there beside her,” he snarled, gritting his denta and gesturing widely with his servos. “The only reason why his precious Project Predacon is currently on full swing is because _I_ supervised the acquisition of his dozens of predacon bones -” 

Knockout didn't say anything but nodded along signaling he was listening, but Starscream didn't have the chance to go on because the test subject chained to the examination table stirred and started to trash and groan. 

Starscream huffed, irritated. “Would you please keep your lab rat quiet while I'm airing my grievances?!” he said to Knockout, his voice calm and soft but straining with the suppressed annoyance he was trying to relieve. 

The grotesque, partly rusted remains of Breakdown struggled weakly against the bonds that tied it down on the table, and a strange filtered human voice rasped out underneath the dead metal: “Starscream... Help... Me...”

The voice was all too familiar to Starscream, however, its tone was not the cold and merciless one he remembered, but an exhausted and trembling plea to him. A cold spark of sadistic satisfaction ignited in his chassis at that, and he couldn't stop a low chuckle.

“My, my, my... What have you been inflicting on poor Cylas?” he asked the medic as he turned to him, grinning. He still remembered the pain of a brutal EM pulse that had knocked him offline as well as the horrible feeling of being incomplete and empty without his t-cog and alt mode. Vengeance was indeed sweet. 

Knockout mirrored his grin and laughed carelessly. “Anything that merits the need for a living petri dish,” he replied and casually stabbed another injection into the medical port in Cylas's arm. 

The effect wasn't immediate, but when it finally kicked in it was prominent. The green mixture in the syringe now rushing in Cylas's fuel circulation made the abomination groan and convulse, the brittle metal crunching against the bounds.  
To Starscream the noise was both disgusting and pleasing at the same time. 

The sweet payback aside, the creature itself made him shudder. A horribly mutilated husk with a piece of filthy rotting flesh inserted in the spark chamber, the purest place in an online bot's frame, was like something out of exploitation horror film or a feverish nightmare of a trauma patient, and it had a familiar face attached to it.  
Starscream avoided looking straight at Breakdown's face because of pure decency and self-protection. He hadn't known Breakdown that well since the mech hadn't been a talkative type or hadn't had anything in common with the seeker unlike Knockout, but he had been a fellow Decepticon, a comrade of sorts. 

And now his rusted, offline frame had been disgraced and made into a flesh hybrid. If that had been done to anybot, familiar or stranger, a friend or foe, Starscream would have been horrified in an equal manner. 

But Knockout didn't seem to mind, he even had that weird gleam in his optics they gained when he got into one of his more questionable interests. 

“Despite your justifiable lack of regard for his human side... It doesn't trouble you to watch what remains of your former partner endure your scientific endeavors? ” Starscream thought out loud, tapping his talons together. He wondered if the situation would be the same if it was his reanimated husk strapped on Knockout's operating table. 

The medic shrugged. “Not really,” he said bluntly like he hadn't paid any mind to the possible ethical dilemmas involved before Starscream had asked. “Besides, Cylas once had poor Breakdown pinned to his lab table. I think my former partner would be pleased to be a part.”  
The same sadistic note rang deep in Knockout's voice that Starscream had felt while witnessing Cylas's agony. 

Starscream tried to imagine one of his trine on the table, but discarded the images fast, shuddering.  
Then another thought resurfaced and presented a burning question that made him unbearably curious. 

“Ah... I've been meaning to make a rather personal query...” he started while Knockout checked the readings in his equipment. 

“Hmm? Well, shoot,” the medic said without turning to look at him. 

Starscream tapped the tip of his left pede on the floor, put his arms behind his back and reset his vocalizer in order to buy some more time. “Well... The late Breakdown was... uh... your former partner?” 

“Yes, he was,” Knockout answered and turned to frown at the seeker. “But you knew that already. What's your deal?”

Starscream hesitated and offered a tilted smile at the medic before looking slightly past him. “I only meant to inquire the exact nature of your partnership.”

His exact intentions seemed to dawn to Knockout, whose optic ridges climbed up his forehelm before he gave the seeker a pointed look. “We were good friends with a tight work arrangement, if that's what you're asking,” he answered with a cold undertone in his voice. 

The combination of look and tone Starscream received made him suddenly embarrassed and he reflexively flapped his wings in a calming manner until he realized Knockout probably didn't know seeker body language and he was just making himself look silly. He reset his vocalizer again, put on his serious face and spoke with a matching tone: “Yes, that was what I was asking, thank you. Did you – uh – know each other before you joined the Decepticons?”

That wasn't as smooth as it could have been and Knockout raised one of his optic ridges at him, but answered anyway: “No. But we discovered we were both from Praxus and got along very well. During war time it's stupid to even consider amica endura or other partnerships, so we were pretty casual about it. That's all.” 

The situation would have probably grown into an awkward one, but the side effects of the injection saved Starscream by sending Cylas tumbling into a frenzied rage attack. 

To Starscream's great joy Knockout got back into better mood when he got to talk about his experiments on the abomination, and with more information an idea presented itself. 

“Megatron has long desired a beast machine super soldier,” Starscream said with a gleam in his optics that only opportunity lit up. “And we now possess the means of delivering one to him!” 

And so the plan started taking shape. The familiar tingle of a possibility to seize a better position took over his spark and he grinned. With his wits and planning and Knockout's scientific knowledge the plan was on solid ground, the favorable outcome almost within their grasp. Starscream congratulated himself for choosing his company this well.

It was difficult to say when things started to slide downhill and out of control, but Starscream would place heavy blame on Megatron and him dismissing his second-in-command as someone “not important”. 

That was an insult that stung deep, and Megatron knew it. Starscream wouldn't let that slide easily. He stormed out of the bridge and almost past Knockout who waited for him in the hallway, only remembering the medic when the mech in question spoke. Starscream spun around, full of irritation and burning pain after being ignored, and suddenly Knockout seemed like a perfect person to take out his irritation on.

They bickered on their way back to the medical bay, where Cylas carried on spitting insults and empty threats at them, only rushing on Starscream's approaching headache. For one moment he seriously considered leaping across the room and clawing his way through the metal until he could sink his talons into the crunchy skull and soft flesh. He wondered whether he would feel better if he followed the impulse. 

According to all logic the dark energon should have worked. It was just sheer bad luck that it didn't, and even though in retrospect Starscream recognized he probably should have listened to Knockout who didn't want anything to do with the blood of the Chaos Bringer, the medic was also to blame. Did he have to bring up Shockwave just when they were collaborating together? Knockout too? The last thing Starscream needed or wanted was a reminder that Knockout too reported to Shockwave now.

Just the scientist's name falling from Knockout's lipplates made a whole new kind of beast wake up in Starscream, one made of acid and bitter fears that crawled up his intake and threatened to strangle him from the inside. And when that beast was awake, it was in command. 

The results were horrifying. The faint purple lights of the hallways were suddenly terrifying, the silence ominous and every corner a possible place for being ambushed by an infestation of reanimated energon-thirsty monsters.  
Starscream and Knockout sneaked forward with no clear idea of where they attempted to go, their weapons at the ready. Starscream tried to desperately come up with a solution to the situation that didn't put him under harm's way, but the constant threat of termination affected his processor power negatively – what a surprise. 

The first victim of the rampant Cylas they came across snapped Knockout's thin patience and he turned against Starscream in order to find someone to blame. Starscream, who was already in the mood for a good argument with someone, anyone, threw himself at the opportunity to attack someone.

“Well you're the mastermind who chose to experiment with Synthetic Energon!” Starscream accused the medic, who narrowed his optics in return and leaned closer so he could snarl straight back to Starscream's face.

“And you're the monkey wrench who thought it was a good idea to dabble in voodoo!” Knockout snapped back as if he had disagreed with that, and gestured towards the offline vehicon on the floor – who appeared worryingly lively for a bot with no spark. 

Their argument ceased of existence as easily as it had started when they had a common and very urgent problem, and after putting a hole where the bot's spark was supposed to be they turned around and ran for it, neither one knowing where to but to the same direction none the less.

Their way was decided for them: it was the hallway with no infected monsters in it. Groups of mutated undead slithered around, moaning for energon and ready to suck the life out of the first unfortunate bot on their path. 

Knockout was just a few steps behind Starscream when they ran through the deck. First a right turn that turned out to be an awfully literal dead end, back again, left turn, then right again. Finally they had an empty hallway ahead of them, and a minor command station to their immediate right with a lockable door. They dived in, activated the locking systems and fell side by side on the floor, trying to settle their howling ventilation. 

They sat on the floor in silence until their cooling fans had stepped down a few settings. 

“Knockout,” Starscream managed to say, his voice harsh and barely stable. “I think this situation might be a bit more dire than either of us ever imagined.”

Knockout hummed in agreement, bless his spark, completely calm. He looked just a bit riled but mostly displeased by the turn the events had taken. “I find it rather ironic that after battling Autobots all these years. Getting smacked down, shot at, blown up...” he listed with a sarcastically fed up voice, “ _this_ is how our lights go out?”

Starscream found himself smiling ever so slightly at the medic's tone even though they were about to face almost certain termination. He felt very strange inside, afraid and anxious but oddly uncaring at the same time. “Drained of our precious fluids...” he said, almost laughing out loud at the bizarre setting. He caught Knockout's gaze. “If this is indeed the end... If we are to become Terrorcon chow... It has been an honor serving Lord Megatron with you.”

To his amazement he realized he meant every single word he said. He stared into Knockout's optics and smiled, suddenly glad that he wasn't going to offline alone and that it was Knockout he was with. Who else? Of course it was him, the seeker could now see with crystal clear clarity, it was this mech he was supposed to be with. 

Knockout't expression was hard to read. Maybe he was a bit puzzled at the honesty he was receiving from the usually aversive Commander, but whatever the case a hint of a smile was already rising on his faceplates, and Knockout never faked his emotions. 

“You're no Breakdown in servitude. But I must confess...” his mouth was open but he seemed to change his mind about something. “I have always admired your lustrous finish.”

A wave of heat flashed across Starscream's faceplates and his smile spread and softened. Despite the fear and distress his spark spun and brightened, making him lightheaded and his intake dry. 

“Any last regrets?” Knockout jested with a smirk. 

Starscream opened his mouth but only a small wheeze came out at first. Oh, he regretted many things. Everything seemed so clear now with all his survival protocols online and running. Things he should have said and done, things that he should have kept to himself... All kind of small things came to mind, like a comeback to a squabble Skywarp had won so long time ago, and at the same time many great and painful things seemed to shed their gold paint and lose their meaning. 

“One... thing... comes to mind,” he managed to stutter out. His faceplates were burning and his voice felt unreliable, but still he pressed on. Knockout smirked wider and held his gaze. 

“I should have – I should have told you – “ the seeker didn't know what. What should he have said? But there was one thing he knew he wanted to do, had wanted for a while but only now saw it in this clarity of his last moments. 

“Yes?” Knockout prompted. His voice had gone low and smooth, and it went straight to Starscream's spark. 

The seeker tilted his frame more to the side, folded his legs differently so he could rest his weight on his thighs, knees and left servo and turn his front towards the other mech. He tilted his helm and leaned forward. 

They had been close in the first place, but this new angle made the space between them seem practically nonexistent, and Knockout picked up the signals quickly. At first his optics widened in surprise, but his faceplates quickly morphed into a smile which in turn melted into a dreamy expectant expression with slightly parted lipplates. Gently and without a sound Knockout laid his raised knee on the floor and slowly brought up his servos, cupping both sides of Starscream's faceplates with them.

“Your plating is burning,” he mumbled.

“I know. It's your fault,” Starscream answered before offlining his optics and closing the distance between them. 

The kiss was soft and sweet but carried an aftertaste of desperation. Starscream had a hazy intoxicated memory of Knockout's lipplates but nothing could compare to the real deal in the current time with the smooth metal against his own basic model intake, fine parts sliding so perfectly together that there was barely any seams at all, the taste of Knockout flooding his sensors with new exciting information. 

Knockout's thumbs stroked the sides of his face as gently as his mouth moved against his, holding him like something cherished and dear. Starscream wanted their kiss to last forever. He hoped that if he wished hard enough he could just stay here, press himself against Knockout and kiss him again and again and again.

But all good things must come to an end, and they pulled apart. 

Starscream looked away. “Well then...” he said, his voice sounding odd even in his own audio receptors.

Knockout licked his lipplates when the seeker looked away and reset his vocalizer. “Should be going.”

And on their way they went, out of the shelter and back to the hallway, around the corner and clashing right into Lord Megatron, who was less than pleased and discarded all Starscream and Knockout's attempts on explaining things away with cold, barely-contained resentment. The warlord was furious about the rogue activity that happened behind his back and no doubt had a punishment reserved, but first things first, and they headed for the bridge.  
Starscream kept tapping his talons together while Megatron sounded the alarm and made a ship-wide broadcast about the situation. He didn't pay any attention to his surroundings besides Megatron, not even Knockout by his side who was subtly wiping his mouth as if some condemning evidence might have remained there. 

Starscream was anxious. He stood still and quiet, furiously thinking. “You have been granted more chances for redemption than anyone in Decepticon history,” Megatron had snarled at him, and a cold wave of shame had crawled down his spinal strut at that. He knew fully well what the warlord had meant with his words, and the knowledge that so did Knockout made him feel ill.

If the undead problem hadn't been theirs to solve it definitely was now, but not even sneaking around the dark hallways in search of their horrid creation could scare Starscream more than the impending fact that he would have to deal with Megatron's wrath after all this was over. 

“I realize this is just a way to punish us but how are we the best choice to hunt down Cylas?” Knockout vented by the side of the seeker, too busy to pay him proper attention. The medic was taking the situation in a much calmer manner than Starscream but also with more why-always-me -toned whining. “I mean, how about that predacon of his? It is supposed to be the ultimate hunter, hmm?”

“Out of the question!” Starscream snapped, shuddering at the mere thought. “Can you imagine if the predacon became infected? Nothing could stop it!”

“Oh... Right,” Knockout mumbled, shuddering as well. If he was majorly bothered by the previous back-stabbing, he was putting those feelings aside for now. Starscream was grateful for that, but a small part of him wondered if Knockout had expected his betrayal. That same part might have felt insulted if the medic hadn't been right about it. 

They walked down the long, steadily curving hallway in silence. Starscream stepped only on the tips of his pedes and kept turning his helm around just in case, although they were very likely to hear any stalking undead before having a visual of them. 

With his keen gaze he noticed a fresh trail of energon splatter and dragging marks on the floor. 

“Look!” he said to Knockout. “Over there!”

The trail led them to the vault where the collected relics and special weapons were kept, the door's locking system smashed and the door open. Carefully they sneaked into the room, watching out for a charging monster on each step. 

Instead of that they saw a familiar dirty blue frame lying on the ground, cold and unmoving. 

Starscream sighed with relief. “At last our torment comes to an end!”

“Or not,” Knockout said.

Starscream turned to look at the doctor and saw him pointing at something with a pained expression on his face.  
The seeker turned and saw what the medic was pointing at: the remains of a destroyed storage conduit and a stasis pod which had contained the hibernating Airachnid, who was nowhere to be seen.

Starscream slumped. “Scrap,” he cursed. 

At the same moment his commline beeped and Megatron's impatient voice demanded results: “Starscream! Have you located the plague bringer yet!?”

“Well, actually, my liege, I have some good news!” Starscream answered, eyeing Cylas's once again lifeless husk, then turning to look at the remains of the stasis pod. “And some... bad news... The creature is offline but managed to sabotage our weapons vault. It seems that Airachnid is on the loose.” 

His day had been horrible to begin with and was getting worse by every passing cycle. Who would have guessed he didn't have to go on a mission or even leave the Nemesis to get Lord Megatron's wrath upon him. He could have laughed at the unbelievable bad luck he was having, but forced it to remain as a strained smile until Megatron had vented enough. 

Knockout waited quietly near by until Starscream tapped the line off. The medic looked considerably less anxious than the seeker did, his arms crossed and his grim expression bordering on almost bored, only his tapping pede betraying the worry.

“Well then,” Knockout said. “We continue hunting them but with a different target.”

“Seems that way,” Starscream answered and moved towards the doorway.

Knockout turned to follow and uncrossed his arms to ready the weapons. “So Airachnid, eh? This means we have to look out for the insecticons too.”

Starscream couldn't repress the shiver that ran down his spinal strut, rattling his wings. “I sincerely hope we won't run into any of them! They move around in swarms and there's no way just the two of us can handle them when out-numbered!” he groaned, frustrated. 

“True... It's as I said, this is a punishment,” Knockout replied. “And I'm sure we will be punished some more if we by some divine miracle manage to survive this.”

Now Starscream couldn't stop the high-pitched burst of hysteric laughter from escaping him. He felt weirdly dizzy with all the running protocols possibly overheating his processor, and he completely missed the odd look Knockout gave him. 

“Oh, if you doubt that even slightly you clearly don't know our Lord like I do,” Starscream muttered with a cracking voice. Knockout didn't say anything back. 

The corridors of the deck they were on were eerily quiet and empty as they made their way through them. They didn't encounter any of the infected, insecticons or other crew members, but on the other hand neither did they see any traces of battle anywhere. 

They took a turn on one of the intersecting hallways leading through the ship horizontally, and in no time they heard the distant sound of laser fire and the uncanny battle cry of the insecticons, possibly a few levels beneath them. Hesitantly Starscream lead them towards the noise, and Knockout trotted after him with little to no care for where they were actually going. 

“One thing is certain after this is over...” the medic muttered mostly to himself, but Starscream turned his helm so his audio receptor was towards him anyway, expecting the rest of the sentence. “I will never ever mess with dark energon ever again.”

“Mm... A sentiment we both share, doctor,” Starscream grunted in return. “It truly is evil in its purest form. Nothing I ever want to even dip a tip of my talon in again.”

Knockout raised his optic ridges, making a disbelieving face to the seeker's back. “Really? This isn't the first time you've tampered with Lord Megatron's energon supplies, Starscream.”

Starscream threw him an anxious, cornered look over his shoulder and sputtered something unintelligible while gathering his wits. “Well, yes – ah – that may be, but... I've come to the conclusion that it is not good for me! Not good for anyone else either, for that matter...”

“Hmm. Lord Megatron apparently has had pleasant experiences with the dark matter,” Knockout pointed out.

Starscream puffed, annoyed. “And he is the only one! For Primus's sake, sometimes I could swear that mech is not of this world with his persistence to stay online,” he vented. “And with a clear conscience he put us up to this task even though he knows we can't handle this... If I live to see tomorrow I swear I will...” 

The seeker came to a pause and stood rigidly still, all so suddenly that Knockout almost clashed into him. 

“What is it now?!” the medic impatiently demanded, after narrowly dodging the seeker and stepping to his side instead. 

Starscream didn't look at him for a few kliks but listened keenly, frowning. “It's gone quiet,” he said. “I can't hear the insecticons anymore.” 

They both stood still like they were frozen in place and listened, hearing nothing. The distant sounds of battle had made both of them anxious just moments ago, but they had at least been signs of life. The dead silence that had settled in the hallways felt, if possible, even more eerie. 

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Knockout finally whispered. 

Starscream didn't have time to answer before his commline sparked to life, making them both jump.

“Starscream!” Megatron's voice demanded. “The problem has been taken care of by one of the competent officers. You and Knockout will both report to the bridge immediately.”

“Y- yes, Lord Megatron,” Starscream hurried to reply. “Right away, Master.”

“And Starscream,” Megatron added, his voice growing softer and all the more threatening. “Soundwave is calculating our troops and losses. By every added casualty my patience for you wears thinner, so if I were you I would make haste.”

The line went dead. Starscream cycled air through his vents forcefully for a few kliks in attempt to calm his rushing processor down before yanking his pedes off the floor and on the move.

“Well?” Knockout asked.

“We are to report to the bridge,” Starscream answered. 

*

Just Megatron's back was a frightening sight as Starscream and Knockout stood in attention and listened him finish his discussion with Shockwave. The warlord stood with his spinal strut straight, shoulders square and servos clasped behind his back, and when he was finally done with his science officer and turned around to deal with the pair guilty of the mayhem, his expression was hard with cold rage. 

“Knockout, do I have to remind you that as the ships's medic you report to Shockwave, not Starscream?” Megatron asked while staring down at Knockout, who stared back with dull gaze.

“Understood, Master,” Knockout quietly replied.

“And just to be sure you shall hand all your projects over to him, including this Synthetic Energon,” Megatron added.

“As you wish, Master,” Knockout calmly said and made a small bow with his servo against his chassis. 

Megatron seemed satisfied with Knockout's quiet regret and smooth submission to his will and left him be, turning his attention to his second-in-command. 

Starscream had none of Knockout's serious, cool composure or posture, but presented his anxiety openly with shuddering, drooping wings and small side-steps. 

“Master, just, please, allow me to explain – “ Starscream attempted hastily while eying Megatron with frightful optics.

“No! Allow _me_ to explain to _you_ ,” Megatron snarled down at the seeker and took a few slow steps toward him like a predator stalking its prey, “in a manner which I know you will understand.”

Starscream stumbled backwards, harshly whispering protests before Megatron darted forward fast and sudden like a bolt of lightning and seized a hold of the seeker's neck, raising him up in the air. Starscream's words turned into startled shrieks, raspy from the strangling hold around his neck and he tried to struggle, pedes kicking uselessly as Megatron held him at an arm's length. 

Megatron left the bridge with the Air Commander – hanging with both servos onto his wrist – in his grasp, leaving behind some of the crew members willfully ignoring them as well as Knockout, who was staring ahead, squeezing his servos into fists and biting on his glossa. 

*

Starscream slammed into the wall of the ward room with a breathless yelp and collapsed on the floor. Alarms flared up in his processor and he attempted to quickly scramble up and back to his pedes. Megatron's coldly pitying gaze watched him the whole time.

“Do you have any idea how much damage you have caused for our troops today?” Megatron snarled at the Commander while clenching his servos, the claws making sharp noise as they brushed together. 

“Master, please – “ Starscream begun despite his vents stammering because of the impact with the wall, but Megatron interrupted him: “Over half of our military might is gone! And why?! Because your intelligence capacity isn't enough to follow one simple order!”

Starscream didn't have time to do anything but yelp again before Megatron backhanded him across the face, smacking him off his pedes again and making him crash on his side. The Commander's wings flattened against his back as a makeshift shield and he spat a mouthful of energon on the ground. 

Megatron stepped closer again, shaking with barely controlled rage. “I allow you to return, I grant you sanctuary, I forgive you the loss of a far better officer... And you can't stay in line even for _one. Single. Moon cycle._ ”

The seeker rose to support himself on his servos and maneuvered his frame to almost face Megatron, but still attempted to cover himself with his wing and shoulder guards, inching ever so slightly away from the warlord. He was trembling and his processor felt sluggish from the blow to his helm, but still he tried to gather himself and force words fall out of his vocalizer with a desperation so great one could have imagined his life depended on it. Maybe it did.

“Please, Master!” Starscream cried out, raising one servo up like he tried to cover behind it. “Allow me to apologize! I had the purest of intentions!”

“NO! You won't explain this away that easily,” Megatron roared, his denta bared and voice dripping acid. “You and I won't be leaving this room until you understand the full weight of your actions!”

His pede rose and struck in a swiping motion faster than Starscream could process, and the kick landed on his side, denting the metal and sending him rolling recklessly before he hit the wall again.

“I only - I only sought to - “ his vocalizer failed to process the commands it was sent and the sentences fell short. Starscream rebooted it compulsively for several times so he could speak before Megatron would land another blow. The side of his face was burning like it had been branded with a blowtorch and the dent in his side was sending wave after wave of dull pain through his entire frame. “I only sought to – to serve you, Master! I never meant any harm! It was an accident! It could have happened to anyone!”

“ _Funny_ ,” Megatron spat with mockery that sliced like a whip upon back, “how it seems that you're the only member of this crew who is so accident prone.”

Fear and desperation squeezed Starscream's windpipe and his voice jumped, turning into a strangled squeal: “Master, please! I am sorry! Please forgive my stupidity, I will prove my worth to you again! I will follow your every command without hesitation, I swear!”

Megatron growled. “You have no honor to swear upon,” he said with a dry, mean chuckle. 

“I swear it as a Decepticon, Master,” Starscream babbled, grasping at straws. He tried to hoist himself into a better position and managed to rise up on his knees even if flinching in pain and the taste of his own energon in his intake. “I live because of your mercy, Master! I will follow your every order, I am entirely yours to command! I will never even think of a position other than what you grant me! I will serve you and only you, loyally.”

Megatron stared down at the kneeling Commander with a sly smirk on his faceplates and a heavy note of satisfaction in the expression as well. He savored the seeker's despair and fearful respect along with the gratification of having pierced through Starscream's ego and taught him a lesson. Everything about Starscream's annoying self-important posture was gone for now, replaced with wide optics, drooping wings and his entire frame trembling with anxiety. 

“You will heed my every command then?” Megatron asked with a low, falsely kind tone.

“Yes, every single one,” Starscream promised, now inching carefully closer on his knees. “Every single one.” 

Megatron's right servo darted forwards and his claws closed around Starscream's neck again, but didn't squeeze enough to strangle. At the same time Starscream's servos flew up and wrenched on Megatron's wrist, but he didn't struggle. He looked up to the warlord's face with wide, overly bright optics in which the fear was quickly making way for determination. The seeker let himself to be pulled along, his knee guards scraping the floor with a sickening noise and his venting already howling in attempt to cool the heat earlier distress had risen. He let his helm lull backwards as much as it could with his neck still in Megatron's grasp, his intake hanging open and partaking in cycling air and his optics staring up, growing even brighter until the red started to turn white in the center. 

“I live to serve you, Master,” Starscream rasped, fluttering his optics in a way he had long ago learned to be effective. 

Megatron's back crashed against the wall and he yanked the Commander along with him, the hold of his servo momentarily squeezing Starscream's windpipe shut and pulling an odd gagging sound out of him. Starscream landed heavily on his knees in between Megatron's spread legs, a place so familiar his servos darted from the other mech's wrist and around his thighs automatically. 

He knew what the other wanted even before he heard the interface panel retract or before the hold around his neck loosened and moved to the back of his helm. Starscream offlined his optics quickly and opened his intake before he found his faceplate mashed against the exposed valve. 

Starscream moved his lipplates against the folds in an open-mouthed kiss and pushed out his glossa, flattened it against the soft silicone mesh and licked. The servo on the back of his helm pushed him firmly against the valve, he hummed against it, tightened his hold on the spread thighs and heard from above him how Megatron grunted and growled behind his clenched denta. 

He kept up the long licks, wiggled his glossa in between the outer folds and caught the valve rim with the tip. There was barely any lubricants yet, but Starscream's own open intake was dripping with oral fluid which made the way slippery while he tried to frantically coax the interface protocols online. He caressed the valve fold with his lipplates and caught a few sensitive node clusters around the rim before licking his way up to the outer node and circling it with his glossa.

Starscream kept his optics offline the whole time and worked depending purely on intimate experience and the tactile sense. He didn't see the purple and white biolights lighting up, slowly at first and then rapidly brightening to their full potential, but he certainly tasted the thick lubricants seeping out of the valve and spreading on his glossa, their faint oily flavor filling his mouth. He smelled the charge building up and hummed moans and sighs against the folds, the rim and the outer node. 

Megatron's venting was labored and he slammed his free servo impatiently against the wall. He bit his denta together harder but couldn't entirely stop the low growls rumbling from deep inside his chassis. He sought a better hold of Starscream's helm and slightly rocked his hips against the seeker's intake and glossa in responding rhythm seeking to intensify the contact.  
Starscream understood the cue, tilted his helm in a different angle and pushed his glossa past the rim of the valve, catching the first inner node cluster with the tip and sending a bolt of charge through the whole array. 

“Good,” Megatron hissed, let his helm tip back and hit the wall and gave the Commander's helm a gentle pet. 

Starscream moaned. One small word of praise dropped from the warlord's mouth and it hit him like hot wax. It poured in him and coated his core, smooth and burning and sweetly numbing. 

The seeker knew this was almost over by the way Megatron's movements grew keener and the servo on the back of his helm pressed harder. Starscream's knees were aching and his thighs trembled and he tried to desperately to use his servos and arms to support more of his weight but they too were nearing the limit. 

He licked harder and faster, lapping at the places he knew to be sensitive, pulling more hissing and grunting out of Megatron.  
He made one more swirl around the rim before moving up to the outer node, closed his lipplates around it in a kiss and sucked, licked and sucked again.

Charge cracked as it was released, the warlord's left servo dashed from the wall to hold on to the seeker's helm as well and hold him in place while he rode out the overload with rocking hips and deep, shuddering vents. Starscream let him, obediently keeping his position and giving a few softer licks until the servos grasping his helm let go and let him drop on the floor.

Starscream kept his optics offline while he gulped air into his intake, trying to banish the taste and the smell from his receptors. He knew his face was a mess but didn't dare to lift a servo to wipe his mouth.

“Get up,” Megatron ordered blandly. 

Reluctantly Starscream brought his pedes under him and pushed himself up. He onlined his optics but didn't look up to Megatron. The ankle articulations were slightly jammed and the main hydraulics of his calves and thighs had difficulties to push him upright, leaving him trembling and hunched over. 

Megatron didn't seem to mind, but pulled the seeker closer by the shoulder guard, bent down himself and took a firm hold of backs of the smaller mech's thighs. 

“I have never left you unsatisfied and I'm not starting today,” the warlord muttered into Starscream's audio receptor before hoisting him up and putting his legs around his waist where they could rest against his pelvic plate's curve. 

“Open your spike cover,” Megatron ordered, and Starscream complied. 

The seeker's spike was only partially pressurized, but Megatron's servo on it fixed the situation quickly. The first quick tug of the cold claws around it made Starscream jolt and whine in the back of his intake, the second made him buck his hips against the servo and by the third he let his optics dim offline again and just went along with it. 

Megatron didn't waste any time but set a quick pace right away, his left servo squeezing Starscream's thigh, the tips of his claws pressing into the metal. 

Starscream held on to Megatron's chassis and rocked with the movements of the warlord's servo, venting harshly and giving a shuddering moan every now and then as the friction forced the charge build up in his system. He vented through his intake, still tasting Megatron on his glossa and being painfully conscious about the mess on his face, but surrendered to the final phase of this incident anyway. 

Barely a klikcycle had gone past before Starscream bit his lipplate to silence a long whine trying to fight its way out of his intake when he overloaded. A sharp wave of prickling electricity bolted through him, making him convulse and release a spurt of transfluid on Megatron's servo before his whole frame went limp. 

They stayed like that for a moment and waited for their cooling fans to slowly click down on lower settings. Starscream hung his helm but kept his optics still offline. Megatron was radiating heat and the seeker felt it on his own plating, but he felt strangely cold inside. The lubricants on his face had already half cooled and dried. 

After the moment passed, Megatron pushed his weight fully back on his own pedes again instead of leaning against the wall. He peeled Starscream's legs from around his waist, supported the seeker's weight from the back of a thigh and by the side and carefully set him back down again, where he swayed a little but didn't tremble anymore. 

“We won't be discussing the matter of the plague after this,” Megatron said, voice gruff and emotionless. “You are dismissed.” 

Starscream made one of his exaggerated bows. “My Lord,” he said quietly, turned and walked out of the ward room. 

The corridor was empty, and Starscream didn't have any idea where he wanted to go now. Despite that the first decision to turn away from the bridge was an easy one, and he strode away from other officers, away from Megatron and hopefully away from every single other spark aboard.  
He lifted a servo to his face and started to scrub off the remains of lubricant there while trying to also cover the lower half of his face in case he ran into someone. 

He didn't want anything, he didn't know anything, he didn't want to see anyone. He longed for the skies and not ever having to come back down again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, dear. Here we go again.
> 
> Anyway. Thanks for reading, also thank you for everyone who left a comment and/or kudos at previous chapters. Feel free to carry on with them.


	6. Player 3 has joined the game

**Chapter 6: Player 3 has joined the game**

 

Starscream threw himself off the flight deck of the Nemesis. He let himself fall straight toward the ground, wings flat, piercing the air with minimal resistance. The air rushed against him, blowing through the seams of his frame and cleansing the fine machinery under his plating as he fell through the clouds.  
When the air temperature started to rise and the buildings scattered below him became clearly detectable he finally transformed, rearranging his chassis into a canopy and replacing his arms with large plates that formed wings, every gap disappearing. Finally the jet engine took its proper place, he turned it on and made a sharp reversal upwards. 

The dent in his side wasn't aching anymore after being soothed by the freezing air and wind, and Starscream rocketed upwards, gaining altitude fast. He pushed his engine close to its limits and sped up as fast as he could until he pierced the clouds again, only then turning his course vertical again. 

He hadn't flown alone in a long while. There was so much space around him, endless fields of clouds and empty sky and he let himself drop back among the white mist. There was no one to judge him or the executions of his maneuvers, so just for the sake of amusement he pulled his beak up and did an inward loop, a loose one that gave him the lovely feeling of weightlessness when he turned upside down before completing the loop and maintaining his previous course. 

Sky was Starscream's comfort zone, truer here on a foreign planet than it had been on Cybertron in a long time. The last orbital cycles on Cybertron were full of raging war and flying had been dangerous, the sky always red and black in fire and smoke, anti-aircraft cannons everywhere, but here on Earth the sky was peaceful. The enemy didn't have flyers and the aircrafts humans flew held no threat to him, so Starscream could be in peace.

But even in the sky he couldn't escape his own thoughts. He was hyper aware of his own frame, and even though being in altform eased the feeling a bit he couldn't entirely shake the memory of touch on him. He felt strangely branded, dirty and bare. The feeling wasn't even limited to his plating alone but was rather like it had corroded all the way through it, into his core. 

It was all Megatron's fault. Just thinking about him made raw anger flare up in Starscream's spark and he did a series of aversive maneuvers, spinning around his lateral axle as rapidly as he could while orbiting the line of his previous course, just barely in control of himself. 

How had he ended up in the situation he was in?

He couldn't tell anymore, many dark teracycles of the war and his time as a Decepticon had begun to blur together. It was impossible to tell all the events apart anymore, but nevermind that; Starscream wasn't a mech who looked back.

This made him a mech who faced the future, and right now it was looking very bleak. He felt the noose around his neckcables grow tighter as the cool-down time he won from Megatron with their little trysts was shortening at an alarming pace. When they had first begun to solve their extreme disagreements with interfacing the silent truces had lasted for several orbital cycles at best, but ever since they had left Cybertron the truces had started to end earlier and earlier until Starscream couldn't ignore it anymore. 

Starscream rushed forward without knowing where he was heading. Clouds grew thicker and heavier around him and the ground below had turned from brown and red into brilliant green.  
He wondered what he was doing wrong. He couldn't pacify Megatron like he used to anymore, and it just didn't make any sense. He didn't think he had changed much during the past teracycles and nor had their dynamic. Megatron was always in control in those situations and Starscream just followed his lead with as much grace and enthusiasm as he could manage, but that wasn't working anymore. Megatron used to ignore him as much as possible during their truces and when they did interact it was always strictly business with a certain note of distant frigidity between them. 

Starscream had felt victorious during those times. They had engaged in a battle of a certain kind and after that it had been Megatron who averted his gaze. 

But not anymore. 

What was he doing wrong? Had Megatron grown tired of him? Was he that boring a partner? 

The air pressure was dropping rapidly, and soon a frontal thunderstorm came into view. Looming mass of dark clouds churned ahead, bright lightning flickering in the midst of it, followed by the rumbling noise of thunder. Starscream should have rerouted his flight route and avoided the storm, but he wasn't feeling like playing it safe and so kept his course steady.

Once, not so long ago, Megatron had told him it would be a miracle if Starscream survived what the warlord had planned for him. It hadn't been so much a miracle back then as the dampening effect of the old trick for turning wrath into something else, and since that particular trick was quickly losing its power as the emergency exit, the next time just might prove fatal. 

He flew into the storm. The vision dropped and the charged air messed up Starscream's meters and he navigated through the dark clouds depending purely on his instincts.  
His mistakes weighed on him heavily. The plague of the undead had been officially dealt with but he was certain it hadn't been completely swept under the rug. After all, he had tried to pin it all on Knockout, and he had a feeling he was about to pay for that particular mistake some time soon.

Back-stabbing Knockout might just turn out to be one of Starscream's monumental mistakes since the medic was generally on his side and showed him some kindness and friendship, but as the treatment Cylas had received for mistreating Breakdown proved, the medic had a malicious side to him as well. A worryingly dark, amoral and vicious side that Starscream would prefer not to have any contact with.

An image of the medic's dissection table lingered on Starscream's mind, and he wondered would he find himself strapped there some time soon. 

By the Pits, his recent doublecrossing and the fact that he was turning more unattractive klik by klik could end up being the crossfire Starscream ended caught up in, and Megatron wouldn't certainly have any problem tossing his useless, boring second-in-command into the laboratory to become Knockout's new plaything. 

A lightning struck towards the ground, accompanied with a roar of thunder, the brightness blinding the seeker momentarily. Starscream wasn't terribly bothered by the loss of visual feed but focused on his flight more as a physical performance. It was dangerous to fly through a thunderstorm, and he was practically asking to be struck by a lightning and plummet to his termination, but found he didn't care. The mixture of fear and thrill he got out of the stunt he was pulling felt electrifying in his spark, like he had shaken off the veil of worry and self-hatred and was fully functioning and rooted in the present moment again. 

The thick waxy layer of unease he had been cocooned in was pierced by the dangerous storm. Starscream fired up his engines and pushed them to their limit. Thunder roared around him, vibrant lightning exploding in complicated nets for a passing klik before disappearing again, and Starscream was forced to stop relying on his vision altogether and stick to the radar and his instincts sharpened by experience. 

He rocketed through the clouds, heavy rain bombarding him from all directions and charge cracking on his plating, and with the speed and rain he slowly stopped thinking about his worries one by one.  
The eye of the storm wasn't far ahead, Starscream could tell by his meters going wild alone. Flying there would be a suicide, you didn't even need to be an aerial to know that much, but he kept going regardless. He was a seeker of Vos, he could do whatever he pleased, and anyway, a lucky lightning would just solve this whole mess within kliks. 

The cleansing rain and the electricity all around him made Starscream feel serene and a bit dizzy at the same time. He gained a mindset that resembled the near-termination-high. 

Suddenly he pulled sharply upwards, demanding everything they got from his engines again, and bolted above the storm. He made a loose turn sideways, changing his course roughly 180 degrees and just flew straight ahead until his meters and radar sorted themselves out and he could locate the Nemesis.

He had business to attend to. 

Starscream left a trail of droplets on the corridors of Nemesis as he hurried through them. The charge from the thunderstorm prickled on his plating and made his steps feel oddly light despite the anxiety infesting his processor. He walked with determination and even though he felt and noticed the lingering looks of the crew members, no one tried to stop or speak to him, and he reached the medical bay in no time. 

His business was urgent but it would have to wait for now, because when he strode in the doctor was busy. There were at least a dozen patients loitering around, some of them sitting on the medical berths and getting scanned, some of them giving energon samples, some just waiting around for their turn, and in the midst of them was Knockout and his nursing staff. 

Starscream's grand entrance was downplayed by the rush all around him, and he took a few awkward steps in. But even though he didn't say anything and generally no one paid his arrival any attention, Knockout's helm turned to him.

“Commander!” he said, not in his usual greeting tone but as an emotionless acknowledgment. “I'm a bit busy at the moment but please, take a seat and wait for your turn.”

The audience Starscream hadn't prepared for but was presented regardless pushed him onto uncertain ground, and he just jerked his helm in a nod and wandered around in search of a free seat. He found one in almost back of the room on an examination table, sat down and observed the barely managed chaos before him.

How typical of his luck. When he had dashed through the sky to return to Nemesis he had had a clear vision of what he wanted to say to the medic, but now he couldn't carry the scenario out like he would have wanted to. He hardly could risk his face or reputation so he could blurt out some freshly realized truths to the ship's medic now could he? Gossip spread around on Nemesis easier than fire in an energon reservoir. 

After a moment of observing Starscream understood what all the fuss was about. It was the containment protocol Shockwave had come up with in the aftermath of the plague, and Knockout had obviously been put to work as well. The doctor was scanning and testing every survived crew member and taking an energon sample from each one in case of a dormant infection, and Shockwave was no doubt doing his own part of the same job and then some. 

Starscream swung his pedes, deep in thought. Damn Shockwave, taking a chunk of Knockout's attention away from him. The medical bay was supposed to be their ground, no intruders allowed. All these crew members here raised a bitter ghost taste on his glossa as well, but them the seeker could at least reason away. Knockout was just doing his job, that was good. He was a very important part of the crew and would be kept around for that, but Starscream didn't appreciate that he had to wait for his turn in order to speak to Knockout. 

It was almost a full cycle before Knockout had gotten rid of the group and could finally turn his attention to Starscream. The medic put an identification on the last tube of energon sample and set it in the test-tube holder, turned around and strode across the empty medical bay to the examination table that the seeker was sitting on. 

Starscream hopped down from the table as the medic approached, and the first thing he noticed was the cold, serious expression on Knockout's faceplates. Suddenly the seeker felt a pinch of nervousness. He wasn't used to Knockout looking at him like that. 

Knockout stopped in front of Starscream, leaned his weight on his left pede, crossed his arms across his chassis and tilted his helm back to signal he was looking down at Starscream even though technically he was looking up to the tall seeker. 

“Commander,” he said, voice hard. “What do you need?” 

“I... I- ah...” Starscream swallowed air. Under Knockout's cold, unblinking stare he felt like his syntax bank had crashed and his vocalizer frozen. 

Knockout's optic ridges inched slowly into a frown. “You smell of electricity. Stop skirting around the issue and spit it out already,” he said. 

Starscream felt his wings give an involuntary twitch and a wave of heat flushed across his faceplates. He hadn't deluded himself enough to think that Knockout wouldn't be angry with him but it didn't dampen the shock of receiving this much unusual icy resentment and cold shoulder. The medic was a frightening sight with his hard, emotionless posture and merciless directness, like he had unplugged all of his emotion circuits altogether. 

“I came to talk to you,” Starscream pressed forward stubbornly. His own voice was about to betray him but he was having none of that, not today. “About, uh, us.” 

Knockout let out a passive hum as a sign he was listening, but he wasn't looking Starscream in the optics anymore. Instead his gaze was darting all over the seeker's frame, inspecting everything from neck down, taking in the chassis and the wingspan, the slight curve of the pelvic plating and peering down the seeker's legs with a long stretch of his neckcables.

Starscream grew uneasy under the inspection and wondered what was the point of it. The medic narrowed his optics at him and his optics locked on something. It took Starscream only a couple of kliks to realize that Knockout was staring at the dent on his side, and before he could stop himself he brought up his servo to cover it. A cold shrinking feeling slithered into his spark like his insides were trying to collapse in on themselves. 

“Stop staring at me!” Starscream snapped.

Knockout's gaze jumped up to meet the seeker's optics, confusion written all over his faceplates. Starscream pulled his best intimidating sneer and spread his wings in an angry display while trying to hide himself in their midst. 

“I am not unclean!” he added, voice raising and cracking with barely withheld fury.

Knockout just frowned at him. “I'm not saying you are,” he replied impatiently. “I'm looking for damage!”

“I didn't ask for your help!” Starscream spat, again louder than before. “I don't know why you think I need it anyway! I am perfectly fine!”

Knockout gave a frustrated sigh and rolled his optics. “Then why are you in the medical bay, then? Usually bots have something wrong with them when they come here to visit.”

“Well, I don't!” Starscream sputtered, his temper spiraling out of control. This wasn't at all what he had expected, and his surging emotions didn't help with the improvising. “On what grounds do you assume you know anything about me?! You wheel-bound, self-important – “

“Aren't you forgetting that I know what went down just a few cycles ago!?” Knockout snapped back at him before the seeker had a chance to complete the insult. 

Starscream visibly winced at the comment. He ground his denta angrily together and just glared at the medic, his pride wounded.  
“Well...!” Starscream stuttered, shame making his voice uncertain again. “That's not why I'm here! I am fine!”

Knockout put his servos on his waist plates and narrowed his optics in disbelief at the seeker. His mouth was a tight line and his EM field crackled with cold danger.  
“Then what, pray tell, are you searching for here?” he demanded.

Starscream's vents huffed with insult and anger. “I came to tell you I'm sorry and that I'm fond of you, you slagging dumb dusty grounder!” he yelled in Knockout's face with his servos squeezed into fists by his sides, his wings rattling and locked in the extreme high position. 

Knockout leaned back as far as he could without taking a step back. All traces of anger slipped from his face and were replaced with pure surprised disbelief that told that he was playing that back to himself before even considering believing his audio receptors.

Starscream stood back as well, his faceplates burning and denta gritted together again in an annoyed manner. 

Knockout reset his vocalizer and it made a coughing sound. “Then... Um... Where have you been for the better part of the night?”

“I flew into a thunderstorm,” Starscream muttered, avoiding Knockout's optics. 

Knockout raised his optic ridges at that and did a new full-frame check on the seeker, looking for damage. “And are you... Okay?” he carefully asked. 

“I'm fine,” Starscream mumbled yet again, but still wouldn't meet the medic's gaze. 

Cautiously Knockout inched closer to the seeker across the small space between them, tilted his helm and tried to peer up to the other mech's face and offer him a soft smile.  
“Are you really?” he asked with a quiet voice. “Dear?”

Starscream's gaze jumped to the medic's face and quickly away again. A few kliks went by and he managed to will himself to look back again, and Knockout waited him out. 

Knockout lift his right servo and gently touched its foredigit to Starscream's chin. The seeker raised an optic ridge at him but let his helm be tilted towards the medic, who rewarded him with a smile before leaning up and touching his lipplates to Starscream's. Immediately when they made contact a bright blue spark of electricity cracked between them. It burned them slightly and flooded their intakes with the spice of charge. 

The kiss was a soft one, nothing like their earlier desperate clinging, but a calm gesture of tenderness between them. Their lipplates met, both slightly parted, slid together and caressed each other for a moment.  
Knockout cupped the side of the seeker's face with his right servo while he savored the gentle contact like a rare gift. 

When they pulled apart they both felt an odd mixture of calm and restlessness settling in their sparks. 

Starscream onlined his optics. He didn't know when he had let them dim offline. 

“So...” he said, “you are not... upset with me anymore, then?”

“Upset with _you_?” Knockout repeated and lift his gaze from his digits that were currently stroking the edge of Starscream's chassis plate. The medic frowned for a few kliks as he tried to understand what the other was talking about, until it dawned to him. “Oh, you mean how you tried to pin your voodoo disaster on me?”

Starscream bit his lipplate and looked away awkwardly. That was enough an answer to Knockout, who chuckled. “That was incredibly, totally rude of you, you know,” he said and made sure he stressed every word to fully communicate his feelings on the matter, “but well, since the theme of the evening clearly is confessions, I suppose it's only fair I make one too. The main reason for my more or less upset mood is a certain degree of jealousy. Of you, I might add.” 

“You are jealous of me?” Starscream asked, a shy, flattered smile rising to his lipplates.

Knockout gave him a sharp look and rolled his optics. “I should have guessed you'd take that as a compliment,” he sighed and shook his helm, but kept on stroking the seeker's chassis as if balancing his words with the gentle touch. “But yes, since I hold a certain level of affection for you as well, I was worried and anxious over you since our Lord dragged you away from the bridge, and not too gently either.” 

It was like Starscream hadn't even heard the last bit of Knockout's sentence but clung on the first bit. “You have... Feelings... For me?”

Knockout gave him another of his flat pointed looks he used when he was extremely frustrated or displeased with someone. “Shouldn't you be aware of that already, Commander?” he asked drily. “I haven't been exactly secretive about them, and besides, why do you think I kissed you just moments ago?”

Starscream shrugged. Like he could understand everything a mech like Knockout thought or did. Before he could decide on an answer, Knockout gave an exaggerated exvent and finally let his servo drop from the seeker's chassis. “Well aren't you a charmer!” he huffed. “And I've wondered how you _aren't_ surrounded by admirers.”

The last comment was a bizarre mix of compliment and insult, and Starscream had no idea if he was supposed to be offended by it or not, so he elected to ignore it as a compromise. 

“You shouldn't be jealous of me,” the seeker said quietly, as if trying to shy away from his own feelings by keeping his voice down. “It's nothing, I've already told you that.”

“Hmm, maybe so,” Knockout admitted softly and leaned a bit closer to Starscream so he could drape his arms loosely around the other mech's lower back, a careful embrace. “But those unfortunate affairs are something I'd rather see you ridden of.”

Starscream was a bit uncomfortable in Knockout's embrace, but it was more the foreignness of such casual affection than genuine uneasiness, and with the public place only adding to that. He wasn't used to touch like this and he wasn't sure if he wanted to push the other away or press himself closer. 

“And how would that happen, doctor?” Starscream asked and came across as bitter and accusing without meaning to. “If you haven't noticed yet, that is how I buy my life back.”

“Oh, I have noticed, trust me,” Knockout answered, slightly irritated by the downplay of his involvement. “It doesn't mean I wouldn't want to find an alternative route to do that. I want to help you, if you didn't catch that already.”

“To help me?” Starscream repeated and couldn't help a snort. “And how would you do that, o' fearless rescuer of mine? You'd challenge Lord Megatron for a duel over my fair spark, hm?”

“Definitely no admirers besides myself,” Knockout chuckled sarcastically and gave a coil in the seeker's side a teasing pinch. “I'm not here to drive to sunset with you on my hood, you prissy aerial! But there are affairs I would see undone if you are willing to plot with me.”

Starscream's mockery faded and was replaced with a hopeful glimmer in his optics, accompanied with his personal brand of malice. “You have an idea, don't you?”

Knockout smirked. “Well, something akin to a one, I might,” he said. “We are berth-mates after all, aren't we?”  
He winked. 

*

Things like letting himself linger and soak under the stream in wash-racks were almost completely foreign to Megatron. For the most part he denied himself any idle pleasures of everyday life in order to keep himself sharp and under self-imposed discipline suited for a ruler of his calibre, but now he was in a state of mind that called for something out of the norm to clear his processor. 

As if the blow of the losses on the troops under his command wasn't hard enough, he had let another relapse happen with Starscream, and that was his own personal shortcoming. 

At least he had his own private wash-racks joined to his cabin so he could keep his cycles-long shower to himself and not have the crew to take notice of it. This was a moment of weakness and he had a rule of not showing those to anyone, however minor and unimportant they might be. His subordinates weren't meant to see him as an ordinary mech like they were, one with weak spots, needs and a physical form as requiring of maintenance as anyone else's. 

Megatron was a force of nature, an unstoppable force without a match. That was how he presented himself and he owned up to that image, no exceptions allowed.

Right now he wasn't living up to his presented image. Megatron leaned his helm forward so the stream of liquid hit the back of his neck, and tried to sort out his thoughts. 

The task was difficult because Megatron couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around the strange dynamic that he seemed to be stuck in with Starscream. He prided himself in knowing his own frame and having absolute control over it, but interfacing was a thing he hadn't ever properly understood. It was about stimulation and bliss and he supposed he saw the appeal of those, but all that he could get from a good fight and without the awkward intimacy or social contact; all in all a preferred option. 

And still Starscream flew through some bizarre loophole in this otherwise solid reasoning. 

Megatron tilted his helm back and let the stream wash his faceplate. Their latest affair had been satisfying for a considerably shorter time than any of the previous one, and it wasn't anything new. He had been aware of this for a while now, that the anesthetizing effect his encounters with Starscream had on their mutual resentment was quickly fading.  
This time the victorious buzz had faded in record time, and now he was left with a vile crawling sensation under his hood and a cold sting in his spark that resembled regret too much to his liking. 

At least Starscream wasn't a bothersome partner. He followed Megatron's lead and knew when to leave, and that was the best thing the warlord had to say about the seeker in this matter. For the longest time Megatron had considered it a considerate gesture but now he was beginning to doubt its sincerity. 

Starscream was a master manipulator, he had to give him that. Until now Megatron had believed their affairs were victories for himself, but how true was that in the end? Megatron certainly had pride, and not without a cause, but he wasn't the type to let it lull him in delusions of his own excellence and perfection, and now was certainly the time to check himself and readjust his view of the bigger picture. 

It wouldn't be an unrealistic possibility that Starscream was pulling the longer straw after all. Megatron rubbed his shoulder joints and the front of his chassis furiously under the shower but couldn't quite scrub off the memory of long talons clinging to him there.  
Starscream was good at turning a plummeting nosedive into a controlled landing. The seeker always managed to maneuver himself so that he had leverage to use for his own advantage, so how unlikely could it be for him to not have some in this?

Megatron growled to himself and shoved his frustrated anger to the back of his mind. He would have to put an end to this, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go. It's a chapter. It exists.
> 
> Starscream is pure emotion, and yet he's not very good with handling that.


	7. All in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well, we meet again, dear reader. *takes a sip of coffee*
> 
> I'm so sorry this update took so long. I've been really busy with school work and job hunting lately so writing had to give away the spot at the top of my priorities, but my beta reader just finished and here it is, the chapter number seven.  
> This chapter also ended up being really long because I wanted all these things to be included in it and... well. It is a lot of stuff. I hope this makes up for the absence of frequent updates. Please enjoy!

**Chapter 7: All in**

 

Starscream sighed wistfully. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, relaxing more and more by every passing cycle as Knockout's digits worked him. He let his optics dim offline and just lay on his place on the berth, cycling air through his vents in a deep and slow pace. 

Knockout was rubbing the seeker's back and wings, and aside from the slight lazy charge caused by their closeness the situation didn't show any signs of being about to take a sexual turn. 

Knockout found he preferred it that way. He was straddling the back of Starscream's thighs and leaning his weight on his palms as he ran them across the silver metal under them. The seeker lay utterly boneless under him, relaxed and trusting, the only sounds he made being the occasional sighs of contentment. 

Knockout was actually quite amazed that they had ended up in a situation like this. When he had casually asked if Starscream would like to spend the evening with him in his cabin, doing something or nothing in particular, he had prepared for being brushed off. Even when the seeker had taken up his offer after a moment of consideration Knockout hadn't expected to get to have any contact beyond casual friendship level. 

This time he could also proudly say that there was no high-grade involved. They had taken their energon rations from the mess hall and gone to Knockout's cabin, and the two – now empty – cubes stood on the small table next to the computer console. 

Starscream had subtly hinted that his spinal strut felt a bit tense and maybe the sensors of his wings needed some special testing as well, and Knockout had jumped to the opportunity to get close to him in a spark pulse. He didn't even consider taking offense of the sharp and suspicious look Starscream had thrown his way while climbing on the berth and laying down.

“If we keep on meeting like this I'll start to suspect you see me just for the health benefits,” Knockout joked and watched as Starscream's dimmed optics brightened and focused again.

“This isn't exactly a medical matter, doctor,” the seeker pointed out. 

Knockout smiled wider and pressed the heels of his palms against the base of both wings and ran them up all the way to the tips, making Starscream release a shuddering breath. 

“Really? Is this another Vosian privilege I've been granted then?” the medic kept prying. “Or have I been degraded into a cosmetic worker?”

Starscream raised an optic ridge and gave him a lopsided smile, which Knockout received with an expectant expression of his own. 

The seeker chuckled in the back of his throat. “And what do you know of Vosian beauty?”

Knockout had to hold back a laugh that threatened to escape and ruin the languid mood. It would be so easy to walk straight into that opening and throw a line of a fine specimen of said beauty resting right there underneath him, but somehow he had a feeling Starscream wouldn't appreciate that, not even for the laughs. 

“Well, barely anything, that's why I asked.” he answered instead. “I'm willing to learn all about it, though.”

Starscream's threw him a wicked glance and chuckled again, clearly amused.  
Knockout was slightly thrown off by the calmness of the seeker during the evening. He was so used to their constant bickering and Starscream's ever-active emotional roller-coaster he hadn't even considered the seeker having any other shift in his gearbox, but apparently peace, quiet and back rubs made him settle down. Knockout couldn't say he minded the change much.

“But in all seriousness, is this another Vosian ritual?” Knockout asked, returning to the previous subject. He was genuinely curious of this one, mainly because he wanted to know the exact nature of the activity they were participating in and make sure they were on the same page.  
“You know, like the cleaning of the wings was?”

Starscream's chassis rose and lowered again as the seeker took a deep invent underneath him.

“No, this is not a ritual. Well, at least not one of any kind that holds a meaning in Vos that would be any different from the meaning it has everywhere else,” Starscream replied, staring up at the doctor. He had crossed his arms under his helm and the smile on his face was almost playful. 

“I see,” the medic said and left the query at that.

The longer Knockout spend straddling Starscream's thighs and rubbing the back of his frame, the more convinced he became that this was some kind of a test. He wasn't entirely sure how he was being tested, but considering Starscream's level of suspicion he held towards everyone it was certainly something, and very likely something important too. 

After some pondering on the seeker's possible motives Knockout came to the conclusion that Starscream was possibly trying to see if his motives were pure and true. The thought was unpleasant but not without logic. Starscream was used to putting himself in the harm's way in hopes of success and being the bait in his own social experiment would hardly be the worst thing he had done, but what Knockout had the most issues with was being subjected to this level of suspicion.

He might have wanted to call Starscream out on this little experiment, but didn't for two reasons: Firstly, he was clearly winning, and secondly this wasn't about him. If he ever again wanted to get through the dozens of layers of defenses and issues and paranoia the seeker came with, this was the easiest way. Not to mention it was an opportunity handed to him to prove his worth just so he could pass. 

Also, being close to Starscream like this was enjoyable. 

“So you just wanted a back massage,” Knockout said. It was half a statement, half a question.

Starscream shrugged. “Yes. And since you willingly associate with me you are the preferable choice.” 

Knockout nodded to himself. That was almost a compliment, and it certainly was a way of saying Starscream wanted him near as well, even if the phrasing was ridiculously evasive. 

“I'm pleased to help,” he said. 

“So I have gathered,” Starscream mumbled, drifting off again. 

Knockout exchanged the kneading to firm strokes, dragging his digits from the tips of the seeker's wings towards his midsection with only minimal pressure and was rewarded with one of Starscream's deep sighs and a dreamy smile tugging on the corner of the seeker's mouth.

“You know,” Knockout begun, approaching the sensitive subject with caution. “I think we should discuss the current delicate situation we are in.”

“Oh?” Starscream hummed. “And what situation would that be?”

It was no use to skitter around it, so Knockout cut to the core right away: “The situation with us and our mighty leader.”

The sentence had barely left his vocalizer when Starscream went rigid under him. The wings locked in an alert position and all the easiness that Knockout had worked for for almost an entire cycle was gone, and a sharp red optic looked up to him with sour hostility.

“What of it?” Starscream asked harshly. 

Knockout gave him some space by leaning back so that he wasn't hovering over the other so much and kept stroking the seeker's spinal strut in a calming manner.  
“I told you I have an idea of what to do about it, remember? And it's not like I can just run around solving your issues for you without your participation, right? Firstly, we need a plan and a story we're going to stick to. You know, the both of us,” he explained in a matter-of-fact voice that closely resembled his professional tone.

Starscream wasn't buying it, though. “ _My_ issues?” he repeated, expression sour. “Yes, well, thank you for the reminder of that blasted affair, my dear doctor, that is exactly what I wanted right now.”

“Well, it has to be dealt with,” Knockout remarked and applied pressure with his knuckles between the large robust cables of Starscream's lower back, shamelessly using the newly gathered intelligence of the seeker's frame in hopes of pacifying the other. “I know it's a sensitive subject but it won't go away by just leaving it be.”

“I know that!” Starscream snapped and lifted his upper frame, leaning his helm to his palm and wringing his neck as much as it would give in order to look Knockout in the face. “Besides, I don't see how your jealousy is going to solve it any better.”

Knockout sighed and rolled his optics. “I'm not jealous, Starscream. I'm just trying to solve a problem, that's all.”

Apparently he said or did something wrong because Starscream gave him an even uglier look and pushed himself up. “Get up and let go of me,” he demanded, yanking his thighs so hard Knockout almost lost his balance before he had time to lift his weight off them. 

Starscream scrambled up to his knees and spun around so that he was facing the other mech before sitting back down again, pulled his knees against his chassis and crossed his ankles. He glared at Knockout. “And what exactly did you mean by that?!” he pressed and narrowed his optics.

Knockout shrugged, not entirely following. “By what? Solving a problem? I meant we should agree on a plan to get you out of this mess -” 

“No, not that one!” Starscream interrupted. “What do you mean you're not jealous?!”

Knockout wasn't following at all anymore. He didn't know what to say, but the silence wasn't any better because Starscream took offense at it too. 

“Well then,” he said, his tone gone from the previous wounded one to an ominously icy one. “You reveal your true colours, doctor.”

Knockout stared. Starscream kept glaring back at him, the lack of response only annoying him further, and Knockout realized he should say something and fast before Starscream would wind himself up in full blown rage and be beyond all reason.

“You are upset because... I'm not jealous?” he said, testing the waters. “And that is... why exactly?”

Starscream scoffed with distaste and turned his helm away. “Oh, please! You're not so special after all! You are just like everyone else, taking me for granted! A silly Vosian aerial, pretty but with a minimal processor, is that what you think of me?!”

Knockout blinked, his intake slightly open. He liked to think he was a socially intelligent individual but Starscream defied all the logic the medic had stored away. He spread his arms, clueless.  
“No, of course not! What in the Pits gave you that idea?” he asked. “That I'm not jealous? How exactly would that be a positive thing?!”

“It would mean you cared about me!” Starscream snapped like it was something considered self-evident. “And about me only! But oh no, apparently you don't care what happens to me when you're not around.”

Knockout felt a flare of anger. Starscream had the insolence to talk about being taken for granted when he himself overlooked everything Knockout had done for him during the time they had known each other, and especially during the last orbital cycle aboard the Nemesis. 

“And how exactly did you come to that conclusion?!” Knockout threw back. “Well, if that's the case then please do excuse-me for wanting to prioritize your problems above any selfish feelings I might have over this, then! I'm sorry for wanting to help you!”

It was Starscream's turn to frown in confusion. He stuttered over several words before managing a simple: “What?”

Knockout rolled his optics and sighed with great frustration. Rubbing the side of his helm, he said: “I don't know what you think I meant or how you interpreted my wording, but jealousy is not a positive thing and I don't really see any need for that now, okay?” 

A quick look at Starscream and his confused expression was enough to tell him that no, it was not okay, so he made another attempt at specifying. “Look, I might be jealous if I thought you'd get rid of me at any given moment, but I don't think that's the case. I don't want to own you, I just want to help you, for your own sake. You know, because in case you forgot already, I care about you.”

Starscream was at a loss of words, his mouth opening and closing for a few times, trying to find them. His wings were slowly inching lower from the intimidating pose to a calmer one, but they drooped past their relaxed state and downwards, flat against the seeker's back as he tried to hide his face behind his knee guards. 

“Oh,” Starscream managed to say and looked away. 

“Yeah, oh,” Knockout repeated, trying to banish the awkwardness that threatened to take over the moment. “That said, just for the record I'll add that the current state of affairs isn't one that I prefer. Actually, I'm quite opposed to it. I'm not indifferent to your pain, nor to how this affects things between you and I. Does this satisfy you?”

Starscream lifted his helm and looked straight at him, still hiding partially behind his own knees. His optics were wide, not alarmed but definitely worried. “I'm so dumb,” he whispered, maybe because his vocalizer refused to make a sound any louder. “I'm so, so dumb.” 

He looked away again, his denta worrying his lower lipplate and hugged his knees tightly against his chassis. His wings twitched anxiously and it looked like that if they just had had more jointed parts he would have enveloped himself in them. 

Knockout wasn't sure what he should do, but when Starscream's shoulder guards jumped as he hiccuped, he decided it would be an appropriate time to make contact. Slowly, not wanting to startle or provoke the other, he moved across the berth until he wasn't opposite of Starscream anymore but next to him.

“Come now, Starscream,” he started with his best soothing voice, “it's not that bad.”

“Yes it is,” Starscream said back, his voice thick and near the breaking point. “Everything is horrible. And I don't... I don't want to do it anymore.”

“I know, dear. I know,” Knockout assured him and let his EM field expand beyond regular social range and project calm and comfort to Starscream, who usually kept his own field so tightly contained it barely let any information through, but here with just the two of us Knockout managed to reach the ragged edge of anxiety. He reached out with his servo and brushed his knuckles lightly against the side of Starscream's helm. The light touch stirred something in the seeker and he leaned into the servo slightly, which Knockout took as a sign that he was allowed to touch more. He leaned closer, almost in contact with Starscream's side, and gently coaxed him to lean against his chassis by petting the other mech's faceplate until he gave in and let himself be pulled into an embrace.

Starscream pushed his helm under Knockout's chin refusing to let him look at his face, but that was the only resisting gesture he made. Knockout kept on stroking his helm and put his other arm around him, just holding him there. 

“Well, consider the bright side of things,” Knockout said. “You get energon regularly again and you got two warm berths to sleep in.”

Starscream's trembling against him stilled for a moment of confusion. “Two?” he asked without lifting his helm, voice quiet. 

Knockout chuckled and pet the seeker's spinal strut. “Your own and mine, of course. Whichever you choose, naturally,” he answered. “I don't scare off easily, you know.”

Starscream was quiet for a long while, only small tremors passing through his frame every now and then along with shallow shaky invents until he regained proper control of himself again.

“No, I suppose you do not,” he agreed. 

He calmed down more but they didn't move. Starscream had pulled his long legs close to his chassis and had his spinal strut in an uncomfortable curve so his side was against Knockout's chassis, who in turn had his legs in a strange angle so he could hold the seeker against himself better, and the position was slowly becoming more and more uncomfortable for the both of them. Despite that they remained like that, not wanting to break the spell.

“You said something about a plan,” Starscream said finally. The trembling and thickness was once again gone from his voice, but he made a clear effort in sounding normal. 

“Yes, but I need you permission for a thing or two,” Knockout said, and the seeker perked his helm up, curious. 

*

If Megatron had had a habit of saying prayers he would have thanked Primus for Shockwave and his bag of tricks. Containing the plague was one thing that was strictly his field and therefore expected of him to take care of, but disposing of dozens of husks was a whole another matter, but despite that the scientist accepted the task. It was hardly anything above regular waste disposal and definitely below Shockwave's rank and level of skills, and taking care of a problem like that was a sacrifice. Megatron appreciated deeds like that, especially since the plague incident was a major weakness in their defense. 

One thing remained, and that was receiving the full report from his medical personnel, and for that Megatron left the command bridge and headed towards the medical bay. Knockout's shift had started several cycles ago, and Megatron had ordered the report ready for today. Many things could be said about that flamboyant doctor of theirs but he met deadlines and did as he was told, and that was all Megatron cared about. 

The medical bay wasn't empty when Megatron arrived, but it was a klikcycle after. The doctor was in, and so were a few crew members jumping to the opportunity to complain about minor health problems such as processor ache and metal burns. Knockout was handing out small doses of sensor dampeners and nutrition shots, but the line mysteriously vanished when Megatron walked in and gazed expectantly at the doctor.

“Just a moment, my liege,” Knockout called out to Megatron, seemingly unaffected by his presence and gave the vehicon on the examination table his dose of dampeners. 

“Thank you, doctor,” the crew member mumbled, already jumping off the table. “Gotta get back to work,” he added with a quick glance towards the warlord before he hurried out with the rest of the loitering patients.

Knockout watched them go and scoffed, shaking him helm. “I must say, my liege, you have quite the presence. Just a moment ago they were all in serious pain but now they're clearly ready to work tirelessly for the cause again.”

Megatron ignored the light remark along with the sarcasm in it and cut straight to business. “The report, doctor, if you please.”

“Yes, yes, coming right up,” Knockout said and walked to his computer console to retrieve his report from his files. With a few clicks he summoned a neat document of text and quickly eyed through it for the main points. 

“I have good news for you, my liege,” Knockout started and pointed at a few highlighted paragraphs of the text.  
“Contamination of the plague was successful and the remaining crew is clean. Further analysis revealed that the nature of the plague was not a virus but more like a poison or a drug. Spreading happened, as suggested in my initial hypothesis, due to one being exposed to the hazardous energon and the bite experiencing a rapid and aggressive infection. The effects of the dark energon are a mystery, but it most likely caused the mutation. The synthetic energon has a curious feature of scrambling signals, and Shockwave speculates that was the reason why you couldn't control the infected despite the link.”

Megatron kept nodding through Knockout's explanation. The news was good, he had to hand the medical team that, and he couldn't quite deny his own relief either. “What about the survivors? No carriers?”

Knockout shook his helm. “No, my liege. The nature of the component is extremely aggressive. It doesn't have the ability to lay dormant. I assure you the survived crew is completely disease-free.”

“Excellent,” Megatron answered and put his servos behind his frame. The worry of the plague had weighted on him more than he had thought, only realizing it now when the worry was lifted. 

He had already turned to leave when Knockout spoke again: “There is one other thing, my liege.”

Megatron turned. “What is it?”

“There's a matter I need to bring to your attention. It's completely unrelated to the plague so don't worry about that, but since you are our lord and master I thought you'd want to know -”

“What is it, Knockout?” Megatron interrupted the medic impatiently. He crossed his arms across his chassis and waited.

Knockout sighed and picked up a datapad on the table, tapped it a few times and scrolled through whatever he had on the screen. “As you know, it is my duty to keep tabs on the basic health of the whole crew. Every single member goes through my examination once every three mooncycles, and there's one thing about a very important member you should know about.”

“What. Is. It,” Megatron repeated himself slowly. He didn't have time or patience for this, and he had great doubts he would care about a health problem of one single crew member as much as Knockout obviously thought he would.

Knockout looked over the datapad to Megatron, his hard gaze stressing the point he was making. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I have discarded many basic morals usually associated with my profession, but doctor-patient confidentiality is something I have honored – until now,” he said, all serious and talking slower than usually so Megatron would have time to understand how important this was. “It is about Air Commander Starscream.”

Megatron frowned. “What about him?”

Knockout sighed. His gaze flicked to the datapad and up again. His expression was slightly displeased but not anxious or overly worried, maybe slightly sour. “Well, some time ago, not long after we destroyed the Autobot base, Commander Starscream came in complaining about a sharp pain of rather intimate nature,” he said as matter-of-factually as he managed, but there was awkwardness in his mannerism. 

Megatron froze in his place. 

Knockout gave a twitch of a half-shrug. “I had to fix several rather nasty tears in his internal lining, even some denting. Commander was very angry about the incident and very, very ashamed too, it seemed to me. He ordered me not to file an official medical log about his visit, but I kept some on my personal device.” He lifted the datapad. “This is not connected to the network of our ship so he couldn't find it.”

Megatron barely contained his uneasiness. There was a foreign feeling in his windpipe, like a sharp lump that made the chambers inside his chassis ache. He hadn't realized he had been that violent with Starscream. Sure, there had been some manhandling and scratching but the seeker hadn't ever before needed to seek out medical help. 

“And what is your conclusion of the incident, doctor?” Megatron heard himself ask, and thankfully his voice was as emotionless as he meant it to be. He wasn't to blame of this, after all. 

Knockout's shoulders twitched again and his mouth tightened in repressed disgust. “Well, I put two and two together, my lord. Commander Starscream apparently had a rather violent incident with a crew member he left nameless. An incident of a very vile nature, if you catch my drift. I mean...” he lowered his voice as if the memory pained him, “I had to give him a big dose of dampeners and fix tears all the way to the bottom of his valve so he could walk without pain. I don't believe for a klik that kind of injuries are received consensually.”

Megatron forced himself to meet Knockout's optics. The doctor stared at him for a moment until he was certain that the warlord had understood what he was implying and then looked away.  
The sharp lump in Megatron's windpipe seemed to grow larger, the alien pain radiating in every part of his chassis.  
There were many things that Megatron had done during his revolution and the war it had sparked, many things he knew lesser bots would consider unthinkable and evil, but even though the energon he had spilled was unmeasurable, even though the war he had lead had left Cybertron dark, if there was one deed even he found unforgivable, absolutely disgusting and knew he would never in any situation commit, it would be the one Knockout was implying he had inflicted upon Starscream. 

In his eyes Starscream was a worthless, bothersome and treacherous little schemer, one he would gladly dispose of if a proper chance and provocation appeared, but not even Starscream deserved to be raped. 

And yet here he stood, listening to Knockout saying that the extent of Starscream's injuries was so great that he might as well have.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, doctor,” Megatron grunted. He heard the strain in his own voice, a strangely chocked note that he had never heard before. 

He left the medical bay deep in thought. He knew he hadn't violated Starscream, he knew it. The Commander had come to him and asked for it, not vice versa! Besides, Megatron certainly did not enjoy their trysts after his frame had cooled down and the distracting pressure left it, so the claim that Starscream was the only victim here was absurd. 

He mentally winced. He had just referred to Starscream as a victim. 

Megatron felt odd, almost impure just by thinking about the implications Knockout had trusted him with, and the disgusted look on the medic's face that had followed. At least Starscream had had the decency to leave him unnamed when he had limped to the med bay – not that revealing the exact nature of the circumstances would have changed anything, it wasn't like Knockout could do anything about it – but the thought was quickly accompanied by another: Why hadn't Starscream told Knockout exactly what had happened and who was to blame? It certainly wasn't to protect the warlord, and the visit must have been humiliating enough that the details couldn't have been that painful an addition, so why, then? 

It occurred to Megatron that perhaps the Commander had feared a revenge in the manner Knockout thought the injuries had been caused in the first place. A shudder ran down Megatron's spinal strut at the thought. Had he truly represented himself so badly that Starscream thought he'd have to fear that of him? Did two of his officers truly think of him capable of a violation like that? And if they did, how many complete strangers shared that belief? How many rapists lurked among the Decepticon ranks, thinking their leader was one of them or at least approved of their actions? 

If he hadn't felt impure moments ago, now he certainly did. He wished there would be a way to clarify a few crucial things and be rid of the taint, or at least that he could scrub the feeling off his plating. 

His comm line beeped. It was Shockwave, and his intervention couldn’t have had a better timing. Megatron was ready for anything to get his mind off the subject, and he made his way to the flight deck.

The only fault in this particular distraction was that he needed his second in command with him as the next phase of the plan was introduced, and he had to comm Starscream and call him up with him. 

The Commander answered quickly and arrived just as fast. From the corner of his optic Megatron eyed the seeker as they made it through the last corridor up to the air-lock between them and the flight deck, the Commander almost by his side yet slightly behind.  
Now that he really looked and thought about it, Starscream was rather small and fragile-looking. He tried to present himself slender and strong, but in the end how easy it would be to crush his fine joints and thin plating? 

There was a storm outside. The deck was shiny and slippery, the rain whipped the ground, the ship and the two mechs walking outside, and lightning split the sky across some distance, the thunder reaching them several kliks after the flash. 

The pathway to Shockwave's underground laboratory was low and narrow, just barely big enough for a bot of Megatron's size to fit through it. But Starscream lingered behind him, taking nervous sidesteps and scratching his talons.

“Another abandoned mine?!” he shrieked. 

Megatron turned around by the entrance and stared down at the Commander who so carelessly displayed open fear to him. It made his tanks turn. 

“Come, Starscream,” he called, turned around and stepped into the mine. 

Megatron wasn't an aerial by design but through science and careful modifications. His frame was heavy and bulky and his engines had required a great deal of modification until he was capable of anti-gravity, and though now he possessed a flying altmode it didn't make him aerial in the core. 

Starscream was created a seeker and thus had all the good and bad qualities that came with it, such as the pride in his abilities. Crawling into a narrow cave was an insult, and perhaps disabling his flight made him anxious too. Megatron had many times taken advantage of this in order to punish Starscream, but now the nervous skittering behind him only made the sting in his chassis worse.  
If he only knew what that feeling was. 

When the tunnel came to an end and turned into a larger cave, something seemed to break in Starscream and a litany of babble came out of him as if a dam had broken.

“Master, who could have foreseen that my super soldier project had such – uh – drastic side-effects?”

The damned plague incident again. The dull sting in Megatron's inner chambers turned into anger and he spun around. “That cost us over half of our troops?!” he growled at the seeker, who jerked back and fell to his knees.

“Please, master! My intentions were true! I beg you to reconsider my termination!” Starscream cried out, helm bowed and wings flat against his back, trembling.

Megatron despised weakness and fawning in all their forms. Someone who was ready to beg for their life instead of accepting their fate with their helm held high wasn't worth anything to him, not even when they showed their submission to him. Starscream was easily scared and ready to give up anything and everything in order to save his own hide.  
Anything, even things that weren't directly demanded of him he would offer up and suffer for it. Megatron felt his tanks turning again, a heavy slosh of nausea returning along with the sting in his chassis, and he managed only a heavy sigh as he turned around.

He heard Starscream mumble something to himself as he apparently realized the true nature of the trip, and then scramble back up to his pedes. 

The Project Predacon was coming along nicely, Shockwave's reports were overall positive, and Knockout showed up on time to turn in his supply of synthetic energon. Just seeing him so soon after their brief exchange made the blasted sting in Megatron's chassis worse, and the way the medic went and stood by Starscream's side was nauseating. He turned his optics away from the pair.

The day took another turn for the worse when the predacon turned out to be more than just tail, scales and a mind of a beast. Shockwave couldn't have anticipated it, and so couldn't have anyone else, and what was done was done so there was no use trying to find someone to blame. The only thing left to do was to react swiftly. 

In the dark, secluded energon storage Megatron held a meeting with his officers. Shockwave, Soundwave, Starscream and Knockout all agreed that the Project Predacon had to be terminated as soon as possible before the mighty beasts would turn against them. Megatron had always loathed forces greater than himself, and since he had shattered the chains of a miner and later the different ones of a gladiator he had sworn he'd never let another force to triumph over his own, and even though many promises had been broken and ideas tarnished since the beginning, this one had held. 

“Well, he doesn't have to know it was us, does he?” Starscream cut into the conversation. He was lazily leaning against a heavy pile of energon crates, a razor sharp, clever smirk on his face. “Why not lure Autobots to the laboratory, let them do the dirty work and lead the king of beasts there? Project Predacon would be done for, and our enemies would snuff the king, or he them. It's a win-win,” he completed. He was as arrogant as ever but on the moments like this it wasn't completely without justification, and Megatron briefly recalled why Starscream was his second-in-command. 

The plan was put in motion and all parties executed their parts in it admirably. There were only two downsides, and they were that both Predaking and the Autobots made it out of the ruins of the mine, and that with the Project Predacon terminated they were once again without means to strengthen their military might. 

Until Shockwave commed him from the wreckage of his former laboratory with a new plan already taking form. 

Cybermatter just might be their ticket home, and not even Starscream could find a thing to complain about in that. 

*

Soundwave returned to the ranks and brought souvenirs. Ratchet was furious in a stony, cold way and stared each Decepticon officer in the optic with defiance and resentment, not avoiding even Megatron's gaze. But if there was one Autobot who longed to go home so much they were ready to make moral adjustments it was the good doctor, currently in their custody. 

Starscream was by Megatron's side when they visited Ratchet in his cell, and he could already tell the Autobot would agree on helping them. It might have been that Megatron didn't count on it yet and Ratchet himself didn't know he would eventually agree, but Starscream did. 

It wouldn't be the intimidation, it wouldn't be the taunting or the bribes, it would be simply the opportunity to go home just hanging there in front of him and ready for the taking. 

They would all go home.

Finally they would stop the aimless wandering in exile, scavenging for energon crumps and fighting small meaningless battles, and at last set a pede on familiar ground. 

An odd feeling swelled inside Starscream's chassis. It took him a good while to find a reference and place it in times far behind him to recognize it as joy. A flickering spark of hope followed it, setting light to the thoughts of future Starscream had tried to rid himself of long ago. In war there was no place for foolish daydreaming like planning for the future since every day could be your last, or it could be the last for your comrades, or the last one of life as you knew it. When he had fallen through the crack between the two factions and ended up going rogue it had been one of those things you just couldn't predict yet you had to adapt to if you wanted to survive, and even though Starscream wasn't a stranger to hunger the acquaintance had been re-enforced rather pointedly. 

But Cybertron was to be reborn and the cities would be rebuilt. That was great news, better than anything in teracycles, and he was beginning to to enjoy the bubble of joy so much he wanted to share it. 

The klik he was dismissed by Megatron Starscream headed down to the cabin deck without thinking anything special about it. The shining new future was in many ways like a new dawn, beautiful but also blinding. 

Knockout answered his door with a look that was a mixture of surprise and worry which only increased as Starscream didn't even greet him but strode inside and straight towards him, the door shuffling close behind him. 

“Uh, Starscream? Is something wr -” Knockout begun while taking uncertain steps backwards before Starscream knocked into him, seized a hold on both sides his faceplates and mushed their faces together with such enthusiasm that it caused Knockout to trip over himself, sending them both on the ground. 

It took Knockout a couple of kliks to process that Starscream was kissing him while Starscream didn't process at all that the other mech wasn't kissing him back, and before either one did anything differently, Starscream pulled back. 

“Well... Hello to you too,” Knockout said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as the situation settled in. 

“Hello,” Starscream answered breathlessly, smiling brightly. 

The seeker didn't say anything more nor move from his place on his knees between Knockout's thighs, and the medic raised an optic ridge, slightly suspicious. “Not to complain or anything, but what's gotten into you now?” he asked.

Starscream chuckled to himself, averted his gaze and gently petted Knockout's chassis with his talons. “Oh, everything,” he sighed. “We are going home, Knockout. We're finally going back home to Cybertron.”

The news took the medic by surprise and for a moment he was at a loss of words, just staring like he suspected this was merely a very tasteless prank missing only its punchline. But no such thing came, just Starscream's bright smile, one that Knockout had never seen on him before that made the seeker almost unrecognizable. He looked kinder, somehow, almost happy. 

The medic decided he liked this look. He lifted up his servos that had previously supported his weight after softening the fall and let them settle on the seeker's waist. 

“So the Autobot agreed to help?” he asked.

Starscream shook his helm. “Not yet, but he will. I know he will.”

Knockout didn't look that convinced, but didn't argue either. He caressed the seeker's sides casually, and it was enough to coax the other closer. 

“Do you miss home?” the medic asked.

Starscream's talons traced the headlights on Knockout's chassis, almost absentmindedly as the seeker thought. He bowed his helm once in a nod. “I do. I've had my fill of alien worlds, I think.”

“And you think we get to go home together?” Knockout carefully asked.

The seeker nodded again. “Yes, I do. I want to believe so.”

Their chest plating brushed together. They had nothing more to say, and the silence made it impossible to ignore their current position on the floor, almost entwined with each other. Starscream was leaning to Knockout who in turn kept himself upright by holding on to the seeker's waist, effectively pulling him closer in the process. 

Knockout felt something warm flare up within himself as he caressed Starscream's sides with his thumbs. Starscream kept him helm bowed down ever so slightly, and Knockout knew that if he were to turn his helm to the side the seeker's finial would catch his own. Carefully he let his EM field expand and curl with invitation. 

Starscream kept his optics cast down, suddenly feeling almost shy. He felt like he had stumbled into a trap and if he were to lift his gaze and meet Knockout's optics he would trigger something horrible. Except that the thought of this horrible thing made a tingling bolt of charge rush down his spinal strut and nest in the bottom of his chassis. 

He felt Knockout's EM field brush his own, warm and inviting, and he couldn't stop his wings jolting up. Starscream considered his position carefully, but the warm charge seemed to take a liquid form and pool inside him, seeping through all his seams and defenses and flooding his inner chambers, making processing information difficult. His plating underneath Knockout's digits seemed to become hypersensitive, even the gentlest brush sending a wave of sensation through his sensor net. Starscream let his own EM field reach out to Knockout's, just enough to cause a minimal overlap to signal his appreciation without giving away too much. 

Their fields brushed and adjusted to one another, almost melting together. Knockout wasn't invasive in the slightest but gentle and coaxing, attempting to lure Starscream to him instead of barging in. 

Starscream looked up. The bright smile he was still keeping up even though he didn't feel like smiling anymore begun to falter as he looked into Knockout's dimmed optics and gentle yet suggestive smile. Starscream felt his spark swell and grow warmer, its extra energy radiating through its chamber into other systems and making the temperature climb higher. His smile turned into nervously parted lipplates and he could practically feel his optics brighten up. 

Knockout's smile spread and settled again, and his optic ridges quirked a bit like he was having a wordless conversation with the seeker, whose gaze followed every move his lipplates made but always returned up to his optics.  
The medic tilted his helm to the side, gave an almost playful flash of a smile and pushed his chin up. His EM field mirrored the playful tone of the smile and pulsed with now braver invitation.

Starscream couldn't help himself but flicked his glossa out to lick his lipplates. He wanted to say something but there were no words, their silence was firm like a void, only their body language and EM fields being capable of reaching across it. His spark dashed about in its chamber like a shooting star, Starscream could practically feel it burning up, the white hot flame wrapping around his frame, and he found himself tilting his helm and leaning in again. 

The second kiss was somehow more meaningful and deeper than the first one. Maybe it was because Starscream had just dived into the first one without thinking much, but the second one had been coming for a long moment and had had the opportunity to build up.  
Whatever it was, Starscream felt the effects. They kissed with open mouths, and the seeker felt the small puff of Knockout's exvent against his intake, tasted a tang of a coolant the medic had probably drunk a moment before Starscream had barged into his cabin, caught a trace of the soft silicon lining inside the mech's intake. 

Knockout moved his lipplates against Starscream's in a slow sensual way, making dozens upon dozens small currents of electricity dance across his plating, pressed closer and then withdrew for a klik, only to dive back in again. He sneaked his left arm around the seeker's frame, pulling him flush against himself and lifted the right servo up to caress the side of his face and the back of his neckcables. 

When they pulled apart, they rested their forehelms together for a moment, Starscream's optics still offline and Knockout's barely online, dim and narrow. 

“Would you like to lie down for a moment?” Knockout muttered to the small space between them while rubbing the back of the seeker's neck with his digits, reassuring. 

Starscream brought his optics online. They peered into each other's optics for a moment, Starscream hesitant and Knockout ever patient. It was the medic's patience and the lack of any kind of pressure that made Starscream nod.

Even when they untangled their limbs and stood up, they didn't fully let go of each other at any point. Starscream felt awkward with his long limbs and square wings when Knockout walked backwards towards the berth and pulled him along by both his servos, a smile on his face. Starscream felt like he had lost all his skill and grace he was so proud of and instead staggered after the grounder, uncertain of what would happen next. 

Knockout was all grace when he slid up on the berth and Starscream stumbled after him, fluttering his optics and swallowing gulps of air down his dry intake as the medic guided him on top of himself, knees by either side of his pelvic plating. Starscream stared down at the other mech – who was still smiling his warm and inviting smile like all was good and right in the world – and didn't have a clue what he was supposed to do. 

They stayed like that for a moment, Knockout perfectly happy to just hold his partner's gaze and pet his sides, but Starscream was beginning to shake. He was confused and somehow, bizarrely, uncomfortable.  
They hadn't talked about interfacing at all yet, and Starscream didn't even know if it was proper or topical in their relationship. He didn't know for how long, if at all, they would have considered themselves an item, since they had known each other for a long time but it had been only a mooncycle or so since their first even remotely romantic encounter. 

Finally the pressure became too much for him and Starscream hastily climbed off his partner and lay down next to him instead. Knockout let him go easily, and that alone wiped away a big chunk of discomfort Starscream felt. 

Knockout turned to lie on his side with his helm propped up on his servo, the smile still in place.

“You don't have to do anything you don't want to,” he reminded.

“I know that,” Starscream answered, perhaps a bit harshly, and folded his arms under his helm, effectively hiding the lower half of his faceplate. “It's just... I don't- I mean, I haven't, in a long time- Uh. I don't know what I want?”

Knockout took a deep invent and shuffled a bit closer, reaching out to stroke Starscream's chassis, the lines and seams of the armoring. 

“We could try a thing or two,” he suggested, optics lingering where his digits touched. Then his gaze jumped up, captivating the seeker. “I want you. And I would very much like to try anything and everything with you.”

Starscream swallowed. If the flame had been tamed by his confusion it roared back up now. He could feel his faceplate heating up, his servos tremble and knee joints grow weak even though he was lying down. A nervous smile rose to his lipplates, and on that moment he adored Knockout. From time to time the medic's straightforwardness made Starscream feel uncomfortable but now he appreciated it. The true feelings the grounder held for him were one thing he didn't want to have any ambiguity about.

“I... I...” Starscream started, his vocalizer as confused as his processor, “I want... too.”

The sentence was incomplete and left much to be desired for, but Knockout gave him an adoring smile and grinned.

“I'm so happy to hear that,” the medic said, leaned in and planted a chaste kiss on the seeker's forehelm. His servo slid down from Starscream's chassis again, digits caressing the thick coils on his midsection before dipping lower on the canopy and the tender cabling in between them. 

Starscream gasped and jerked a bit, his servos flying up and taking hold on Knockout's forearms to ground himself.  
Knockout looked up to his partner's face. “Is this alright?” he asked.

Starscream gasped a few more times before nodding. “Very,” he said, voice swooping low and raspy.

Knockout hummed, clearly pleased and pressed closer. He didn't quite pull them in full frame contact, possibly because he wanted to see what he was doing, and kept up with the aimless caressing of Starscream's lower abdomen. He didn't seem to be in any hurry, just exploring the frame and testing where the sensors were most receptive while enjoying just plain touching the seeker with his own servos.  
He didn't make any moves to dip lower to the hip plating or the interface panel there, but still Starscream squirmed under his touch like it was already terribly intimate. 

Starscream in turn could only hold on to the other mech, his talons flexing and gripping again every now and then, but otherwise he found himself unable to take part in the action. He lay on his back and let Knockout caress him, and maybe it was alright for now. The nature of the touch was whole worlds apart from everything he had known in a long time, and it both thrilled and scared him. It was unfamiliar ground, but definitely the good kind. 

He crossed his ankles and rubbed his knees together as Knockout's digits stroked along sensitive, softer cables by the bottom tip of his canopy. It could have been completely innocent and not much for excitement, but the affection of it seemed to seep through layers and layers of defenses and go straight to the seeker's core, and there it transformed into a warm thrumming charge that rushed everywhere, making his limbs restless and trembling, clouding his processor and subtly making his interface panel grow hotter. 

Starscream vented harshly, not sure what to do, and was so busy with this that he completely missed how Knockout was shifting on his place too, crossing and uncrossing his legs. The medic was considerably more laid back with the situation and the gentle smile on his face kept the attention away from his restless squirming, whirling cooling fans and the dark tone his optics gained as he kept admiring the seeker next to him. 

Finally Knockout gave up the caresses just with his digits and pressed his whole palm against Starscream's underbelly, rubbing it in slow circles with that kind of insistence that left no room for interpretation. Starscream was ready for it by now, too heated to be at ease, and uncrossed his legs, spreading his thighs. 

But Knockout hadn't been in a hurry up until this point, and he wasn't about to start, so the servo just kept rubbing in circles, so close to the interface panel so hot that he must have felt some of its heat radiating on his servo, and instead on proceeding the medic nuzzled his helm against Starscream's. 

The forehelm guard clinked against Starscream's finial, and the impossibly smooth metal of his pure-white faceplate rubbed against the seeker's sharp cheek. Starscream's exvents both through his intake and the small cooling grills by his faceplate puffed clouds of hot air against the medic's face. 

“Hey, beautiful, would it be alright if I touched you a bit lower?” Knockout asked, voice annoyingly gentle.

Starscream glared up at him, grunted something that wasn't quite a word and gripped on Knockout's wrist, shoving his servo in between his thighs. With the motion Knockout was yanked a bit closer, barely avoided losing his balance and tumbling on his partner, and looked a bit confused for a few kliks while assessing the situation. Then the smile was back and his optics grew darker, giving a whole new tone to his expression. 

“Oh? Someone's liking this,” he sniggered.

Starscream would have snapped something biting back, but the other mech slid his wonderful digits down across his interface panel with the slightest hint of the claws in it, and all that came out was a breathless moan. He clamped his intake shut. If he hadn't been burning a moment ago, he was now.

Very slowly and with just the right amount of pressure Knockout raked his digits up the panel before sliding down again and planted a wet kiss on the side of Starscream's faceplate, then another one but lower, then another and then one more before leaning to mouth the seeker's neckcables. He kneaded them a bit with his denta before flicking his glossa across the seams, then closed his mouth over them just underneath the seeker's chin and sucked. 

Starscream's closed intake didn't help him then, and he moaned in the back of his throat, vents stuttering.  
His impulse to urge Knockout along had shaken him awake from his clueless paralysis, and he had the courage to try and caress Knockout in return. He minded his talons and used the flat side of then as he mapped the medic's chassis, then reached with one servo around him to fumble on the warm lines of biolights along his spinal strut. 

The caress on his interface panel was increasing in force, not so much a teasing stroking anymore but an insistent rub on the seams, trying to coax him to open up. For all his desire and charge Starscream found he wasn't sure if he wanted to. His EM field shivered with hesitation and shrunk. 

Knockout picked up on it and searched for optic contact. His servo stilled.

“Starscream? Are you with me?” he asked. 

Starscream blinked furiously and cycled air through his vents in an attempt to calm down.  
“Yes, yes. I'm... very much present,” he assured Knockout, who didn't looked entirely convinced but frowned at him, clearly worried. He slid his servo from between the seeker's legs on to his hip plate instead.

“Are you sure? Don't just endure things you don't like and make me an abuser in the process,” he said, suddenly serious but softening the tone by petting the plate his servo rested on.

“I wouldn't do that!” Starscream scoffed. “I just haven't been in a situation like this in a while and have a difficult time to remind myself it's enjoyable! That's all!”

He felt very good about his explanation, but Knockout seemed to interpret it in a different way than he had intended to because the medic's expression gained a soft, almost sad undertone. 

Starscream frowned. “What? Are you pitying me now?”

Knockout gave a deep exvent, tilted his helm downwards and rolled onto his front. His servo was the only thing touching Starscream anymore, and it slid upwards from his pelvic plating to his waist like the previous position was somehow indecent. 

“No, I'm not pitying you,” Knockout said. “I'm trying to be caring. I don't want you to go through anything that you have a hard time to enjoy.”

Starscream felt a sting of annoyance and made a disapproving face at the other. He didn't appreciate being looked down upon like that or being treated like a breakable little thing. He was annoyed at Knockout for looking at him like that and angry at himself for his lack of courage. 

“I am not pretending! We already got started, now finish it,” he snapped and lifted his upper frame to his elbow so he was looking down at his partner.

“No,” Knockout said, taking Starscream by surprise. “No, you see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. We don't have to do anything. You don't owe me pleasure and there are no standards I'm expecting you to meet. And if you feel like you are required to give me anything, I don't want it.”

Starscream was stunned. If he had been confused before, he was completely, utterly lost now, and with that a certain helplessness combined into a twisting bundle of anxiety. Intrusive thoughts flooded his processor, and suddenly he was served a selection of his moments in the dark with Megatron, starting from last week and dating back teracycles. His cooling protocol malfunctioned and his vents stuttered while trying to cool down his systems and the furthest ends of his sensor nets went black, leaving his pedes and talons cold. 

Megatron was the last thing he wanted to think about, right along with the humiliating things Starscream had gone through with him, and he shook his helm as if he could shake the thoughts off.  
Knockout rose up on the klik Starscream's venting came to a halt. “Starscream? What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?”

Starscream kept shaking his helm but instinctively reached out for the other with his servo, fumbling blindly at something to pull him out of his own mind and ground him in the moment. Knockout laced their digits together and pulled the other mech against his chassis, wrapped him in his arms and rubbed his back reassuringly. He let his EM field bloom and gain a soft, warm tone that settled like a thermo blanket around Starscream, who found it became easier to vent again. 

“It's alright, take your time,” Knockout muttered, nuzzling his cheek against the top of the seeker's helm. “I'm right here.”

The short-circuit-like feeling inside Starscream eased, and like after a power-out the systems returned to normal functionality one by one, he slowly calmed down and suddenly felt silly. He reset his vocalizer and pushed himself away from Knockout's embrace but didn't go too far, one of the medic's arms remaining loosely around him, laying again on the familiar place on his waist. Starscream kept looking anywhere but at Knockout's faceplate, and the medic let him do as he pleased.

“What upset you?” Knockout asked. 

Starscream wriggled awkwardly and reset his vocalizer again. “It's nothing. Just that you said what you said and I – It's so different, _this_ is so different, and I don't know what to do,” he finally admitted, frustrated. 

Knockout hummed and smiled again, his digits lightly stroking the hard cables under them again. “Don't worry, figuring that out is part of the fun,” he said. “Tell me, what do you enjoy?”

Starscream thought about the question for a moment while staring up to the ceiling, vaguely aware of the digits caressing his side, frustratingly right where they had begun their slow dance towards his interface panel, now back at the beginning. He huffed through his vents. 

“I don't enjoy anything anymore,” he said through gritted denta and with a pained expression. 

“Oh, come now,” Knockout gently scolded. “You seemed to enjoy it when I touched your sides and belly. Or were you pretending?”

Warm glow spread through Starscream's sensor net prompted by just the thought. “No, I wasn't. I enjoyed that. It was... kind.”

Knockout ignored the bleak choice of a word and translated it into “pleasurable” in his mind, slid his servo from the seeker's waist to the curve of his hip plate and pressed on: “Right. So we were doing good. What made you uncomfortable?”

Starscream wasn't entirely sure he knew himself what exactly had triggered the distress, and he had to think about it for a moment. He was grateful that the other didn't rush him and simply kept on petting him, and the nice warm sensation kept spreading. 

“I suppose... I didn't know if I wanted to be so exposed,” he finally said, then specified: “You wanted me to retract my panel and I wasn't... ready." 

“Oh,” Knockout replied and nodded. “Fine. We don't have to go there tonight.”

At last Starscream looked him in the optic again with a raised optic ridge. “Really? You don't want to 'face?”

Knockout chuckled. “Well, I want to. It's just that it means nothing if you don't.”

“And if I said I wanted to try?”

Knockout's optics dimmed again and his slightly comic trademark flirty look was back, and Starscream couldn't help but smile. 

“If that was the case I'd be more than happy to comply,” Knockout said with a grin. 

Starscream almost laughed out loud, but dived into a kiss instead. Knockout welcomed him as if he had been expecting – or hoping – for that, and wrapped his arms immediately around the seeker, securing him in the embrace. Starscream's left servo was left between their frames but his right one was able to sneak around the other mech, and he went straight to the smooth and soft biolights, enjoying their matte texture and warmth.  
Knockout was being very mindful of him and his previous burst of anxiety, the medic's servos caressing him in a mild pace but this time also wandering all over his frame. His palms pressed against the seeker's spinal strut and ran up along it, massaged his wings as much as they could reach, returned to the sides and followed the curve of the waist and the hip plate, paying special attention to every seam and edge they encountered, and all the while Knockout kissed him. 

Starscream offlined his optics, content to only feel. The kiss was perfect, tender and sweet, and they sank into an easy rhythm with it fast, lipplates slipping together with no awkward fumbling, like they were meant to do so, and when the kiss ended, a new one begun right away. Knockout could find just the right angle to his helm, and sometimes he placed a quick peck to the corner of the seeker's mouth in between the deeper kisses without messing up their rhythm, and from time to time Starscream felt a huff of hot air from his intake against his own. 

His servos were everywhere, running up and down and heat bloomed where they touched, and the cosy warmth Starscream had felt at his words was now quickly turning into a burning blaze. Knockout's digits caressed the edge of his hip plate to the back of his frame before daringly grazing over his aft. Starscream wanted those servos lower, he longed to have the backs of his thighs caressed like that, maybe even kissed as thoroughly as his mouth was being kissed, he wanted closer. With the thoughts of wanting more returned a higher level of awareness called for it, and he realized he had been softly moaning in the back of his windpipe for a while. He didn't pay it enough attention to be embarrassed, and at the same time Knockout pulled back from their kiss. The seeker tried to follow, reaching out with his neck and caught the mech's chin with his mouth. 

“Would you like to go on?” Knockout asked, voice low and heavy. 

“Yes,” Starscream answered without onlining his optics.

There was a small sound of a panel retracting, and Starscream's optics blinked online. That hadn't been his. He turned to look at Knockout, who was smiling, his lipplates gleaming wet. 

“I showed mine, you show yours,” he said with a grin and a suitable wink to go with it. 

Starscream rolled his optics at the comment but was secretly grateful that Knockout had made the first move. He didn't feel awkward anymore but in control of the situation, and most of all, under Knockout's keen gaze, desired. He held optic contact as he let his crotch guard fold aside and his interface panel open. 

Cool air hit against his bared array, and he could feel the unmistakable wetness there. Some of the pent up heat escaped now that the panel was out of the way but more flooded down to replace it. Starscream felt odd. He couldn't recall the last time he had been this charged up and wet naturally, not by raw stimulation. He had forgotten how good it felt. 

Knockout tapped his digits against the seeker's hips, hinting something with good humor. 

“Well... Here we are then,” he sighed without bothering to disguise the glee in his voice. “Can I look at you?”  
He was already pushing himself up to his elbow and half leaning over Starscream, whose servo flew up and grabbed a hold of his shoulder guard.

“Don't hover over me like that,” he said. 

Knockout shrugged but understood what he meant, leaned back down again but pulled Starscream with him. “Your wish is my command,” he hummed. “Come on and hop on the saddle then.”

Starscream gave him a long look before exventing with a shake of his helm. “Must you talk like that?” he asked even though he climbed up as he spoke. 

“Like what? It's a fun situation, I'm just keeping the mood up!” Knockout chuckled as he welcomed the seeker over him with open arms and caressing servos. His grin softened into an amazed smile as Starscream settled on his thighs, biting his lipplate, wings nervously in a low angle. Knockout rested his servos on the silvery hip plating and let his gaze skim the whole of the seeker's frame. 

“You are exquisite,” he whispered. 

Starscream shifted on his place, a hint of a smile ghosting on his face. He let his optics flick down and take in the grounder's frame underneath him, and a wave of heat rushed through him. 

Knockout had obviously had some fairly pricey upgrades, both outside and inside. Three rows of extremely thin red biolights surrounded his valve, the two outer ones forming surprisingly complex patterns around the array, and the inner one circling the outer folds closer than in a standard model and curiously pointing to the center. A faint white glow of the outer node shone through the folds, the black mesh between them barely visible. Two straight lines of pure white biolights lead to the spike fold still hiding the equipment, and Starscream wondered what kind of a spike Knockout had chosen for himself and would he get to see it sometime soon. He looked back up to the medic and his vents hitched.

Knockout was relaxed and casual even when completely bare before him, shivering with charge and looking up to him like he was something special and terribly beautiful. That gaze gave Starscream more confidence, and he let his knees slide more apart as he leaned back slightly, tilted his helm to the side and gave Knockout a grin. 

Knockout's engine revved. He palmed the seeker's hips and rocked up to him gently before sliding one of his servos down, his optics never leaving Starscream's face. 

“Do you want to establish some limits before we go there?” Knockout asked with a low voice. “Something you just don't want to do? At all?”

Starscream squirmed on his place. Desire, nervousness and excitement mixed in his spark. His mouth was dry and his protocols wanted him to spread his thighs more, sink down and rut against the other mech to work up the charge and release it in one drive-wiping blast, and he struggled to scramble up a coherent, sensible thought. 

“Just... Just don't... Uh...” he reached for something he couldn't quite capture. 

“Don't worry, I'll be real gentle. I won't hurt you one bit,” Knockout promised with a smile so sweet it could probably corrode any kind of living metal. 

Starscream breathed out a small laugh that had way too much relief in it for his liking. “I know. And just... Please don't put anything inside me. I don't think I'll -”

“Shhh,” Knockout soothed and gently stroked his side. “No need to explain.”

And then his servo slipped between the spread thighs and gave the seeker's valve a long, slow caress. Starscream trembled and gave a staggering moan, not so much because of the sensation but the intimacy of the touch. Knockout's digits kept on stroking the outer folds for a moment before gently parting them and slipping two of his digits between them. 

Starscream rocked on the digits and was about to lose his balance in the process so he leaned forward and over Knockout, who welcomed him with a kiss on his forehelm. He swirled his digits around the rim of the valve and stroked them upwards, leaving a slippery trail in their wake. 

“So pretty, Starscream, and so wet already,” Knockout chuckled against the seeker's audial.

“Don't – _ah_ – talk like that,” Starscream hissed but the command was left weak by his harsh venting and small moans that just kept bubbling out. Knockout laughed. 

“Don't be embarrassed! Just enjoy the moment,” he replied and mouthed the finial of the seeker's helm. 

And Starscream did. He couldn't understand how something so gentle as Knockout's touch could be so intense at the same time, but he didn't pay it much mind, just let the sensation wash over him and rocked against it. His nervousness peeled away when he realized his frame knew this dance, the very base coding guiding it and telling what to do, and everything was working. The charge built up, his EM field slipped from all control and as the field expanded his awareness became one with his frame. His field pulsed, thick like a storm cloud and tasting of pure electrical blue, and fell into a natural rhythm with Knockout's blazing one.

Knockout ran his digits down from the seeker's outer node to caress the sensor clusters along the rim of the entrance, wet them again in the process and let them glide upwards again, this time seeking out the spike fold. Diverging from the familiar path seemed to pull Starscream up from the currents of his own pleasure and his talons let go of the medic's chassis and traveled down his frame. 

“Yes, you can touch. Touch me more, Starscream, I want to feel you,” Knockout sighed against the side of his partner's helm and thrust his hips up. He was charged up and burning from the inside, most of his arousal coming from the situation and their EM fields becoming one and not from stimulation to his interface equipment, but soon enough Starscream's slender digits found his spike fold, caressing with great care and a certain level of uncertainty.

Knockout's intake gaped open and he gasped. 

“Just like that, darling, you're doing so great,” he managed to mumble between his panting. 

The seeker above him just moaned and bucked against his servo. The charge that had until now been building up in Knockout's core seemed to rush downwards and finally load his interface equipment. His spike pressurized and slid out of its casing and against Starscream's palm, his trembling digits caressing every ridge and node along the shaft from the pointy tip to the very base.

Knockout heard him take a sharp intake of air, but the digits kept on feeling up his spike, and the medic let out a long moan to show his appreciation.

Starscream's EM field gained a new undertone, one of joy. 

“Do you like that?” he asked, nuzzling the side of Knockout's neck. 

Knockout sighed a small chuckle. “Oh, Primus, yes,” he said, grinning, and applied more pressure on his own digits currently trying to coax Starscream's spike to pressurize. “Come on, you too, sweetspark.” 

He got only a rich humming moan as a reply and then Starscream was shifting on his place. He pulled with his free servo and pushed with his knees to move higher on Knockout's frame and straddle his hips instead of his thighs. Starscream let his knees slide apart again and his weight rest on Knockout's frame instead and guided the spike against his valve folds. 

It was Knockout's turn to gasp, and he palmed the other mech's thigh with feverish urgency. 

“Just remember... Not... Inside,” Starscream panted while softly swinging his hips, the tip of the ribbed spike pushing the folds apart and setting every external node alight. 

“Yeah, I remember, don't worry, just relax,” Knockout encouraged him and thrust his hips, the wet heat and the velvety texture of the valve making bolts of charge rush through him. He kept on caressing the spike fold, and after a few more thrusts of his hips and swirls around the fold Starscream's silver-and-electricity-blue spike finally pressurized and pushed into his waiting servo. 

After that there was no stopping. No more talking and no more hesitation, just the shared rhythm and the current of electricity they sunk in. They rocked together, servos feeling and caressing, their frames pressing together and radiating scorching heat. There was no more shame or self-consciousness to censor moans or whines, no more boundaries to restrain their connection. 

Starscream kept his optics offline and just moved. The spike rubbing against his valve caressed him just right, the nodes and ribbing along it stimulating the node clusters around the rim and the slim tip catching his outer node with every thrust. He was hot all over, his cooling fans almost screaming in attempt to ease the heat, and all the while Knockout kept pumping his spike in time with his thrusts. 

Knockout was all around him, connected to him in every way, or so it felt. Starscream listened to his deep moans and gasps, reveled in the pulsing embrace of his field and wished he could get even closer, so close they could be one, if only for a moment. He let his servos give out and slide up the red chassis, letting him lean over Knockout's frame and wrap his arms loosely around his neck. 

He was close to overload, he could feel it already tickling the tips of his pedes, teasing him with a promise of pure euphoria. Starscream felt Knockout turn his helm and push his face against his neckcabling, then came a brush of lipplates against his sensitive wires and the wet caress of a glossa soon after. 

The stimulation against his valve, servo on his spike and mouth on his neck were becoming too much, too much feeling, too hot and too fast. He had to push himself upright again, gasping for air, the impending overload demanding his surrender. He was standing on the edge of an endless fall and it was like taking his first flight, terrifying but delicious, this was his to have, his own, and no one could take it from him. He jumped and took flight. 

Overload exploded in him like his spark had gone nova and taken his whole being with it. His wings yanked up and his spinal strut arched, helm tilting back while his systems crashed and processor wiped clean, able to only bathe him in the heavy waves of current discharging from him. He couldn't hear his own whining moan or stop his hips from riding the wave, only feel his valve contracting, making him spasm. 

Unlike Starscream, Knockout was keenly watching his partner as they closed to overload together. The medic was completely swept away by the current, and there was no room for any conscious thought in his mind. He watched, absolutely mesmerized how the seeker rode his hips, as lost in pleasure as he was. He loved watching his partner enjoy himself so much, loved giving him pleasure and loved their joining with all his spark.

The final thing Knockout needed to reach his own satisfaction was Starscream's overload. The rush of discharging current from the seeker's valve against his spike was a mere half of it, the rest of it being the spectacle of Starscream, his moan of absolute ecstasy turning into a squeal and breaking, his spinal strut bent while he rode the grounder's hips as they bowed off the berth. Knockout went under, his processor wiping clean. 

When they started to come back to themselves, they were sprawled on the berth and tangled into each other. If either one of them had had any more strength left they would have clung onto each other, but instead they were just loosely wrapped in each other's arms. 

Knockout nuzzled their faceplates together in a burst of affection, and when he pulled back, Starscream was watching him with a dreamy half smile and dim optics. They just watched each other wordlessly for a long moment, frames slowly cooling down again and enjoying the afterglow before Starscream tilted his helm a bit and reached out with his neck. Knockout took the cue and leaned in for a kiss. They kissed for another long while with lazy, sloppy moves without aiming for anything particularly, just adoring each other in the only way they had energy left for. 

When their mouths pulled apart they pulled their frames closer, both reaching for the other one like due to a wordless agreement, servos petting what ever plating or cable they landed on, legs tangling comfortably together. 

Knockout pushed his forehelm against Starscream, and they were content to stay like that, both smiling like they had shared something unique. 

“You are so beautiful,” Knockout whispered into the silence. 

Starscream averted his gaze and smiled. “And you are wonderful. I feel so... so...”  
There was no word he could find to describe the glow inside, but he pressed his forehelm firmly against Knockout's and hoped he got what he meant. 

If the tender smile on Knockout's face was any indication, he did. He stroked the curve of Starscream's hip like when they had begun and gave a deep exvent.

“One thing that I am wondering right now...” he said.

“What is that?”

Knockout shifted in his embrace. “If we are discovered... If what we have shared is discovered... Will our Lord have us executed for this?”

Starscream opened his mouth to deliver a snarky comment but stopped before one sound could leave his vocalizer. “I don't actually know,” he said “It's not like he has any official claim over me but...”

“It's not like he would care if he just feels like getting homicidally jealous,” Knockout finished for him.

Starscream huffed. “Exactly. Hm. Imagine that, we might actually be terminated for this. How romantic.”

Knockout smirked. “Well... All things considered I think it would be worth it.”


	8. Double the stakes

The morning cycle dawned clear and fresh, but also completely invisible to the residents of the Nemesis. Starscream came out of recharge on his own, drowsy, warm and well-rested, and onlined his optics to gaze at the ceiling of the cabin.  
He blinked. There was no hurry and he felt very comfortable where he was right now. He checked the time from his internal meters and realized that the the earliest morning shift had just started, but he wouldn't have to worry about that: he would report to the bridge well after midday and thus had time to lie there and enjoy himself.

He turned his helm to the side to look at Knockout, still deep in recharge next to him, and felt a rush of affection towards him. The memory of the night before was heavy and pleasant in his chassis, filling him with thorough satisfaction that was more than just physical. Starscream felt emotionally content as well, and he stopped to inspect this new feeling. He had definitely opened up and let someone else in, but instead of feeling invaded or violated he felt good and somehow clean. He hadn't been torn apart, rather it was like he had let Knockout take him apart, take out each little gear and circuit, handle everything with great care and put him back together, somehow with something more to him than before. 

The idea was followed by a strong feeling that he had done the same to Knockout. They had disassembled each other, taken a deep look into their inner workings and then lovingly returned everything to their proper places, but now added with the memory of their shared experience. 

Starscream smiled to himself and carefully turned to his side to have a better look at his berth-partner, and then Knockout came out of recharge too. 

It was curiously intimate to watch the grounder power up – everything was full of intimacy, Starscream noticed. Every moment was new and shared between them, everything was bared and private, things that no one else knew. The thought should have been scary, but it was too early for that. 

Knockout's optics powered up, flickered and for a short moment he was awake but his gaze unfocused and mind oblivious to his surroundings. Then his optics focused on Starscream next to him and a smile lit up on his face.

“Good morning,” he greeted, his voice a bit raspy after power-down mode. 

Starscream smiled too. “Good morning.” 

They just lay in the berth for a moment, enjoying their slow morning and the warmth they shared. Last night was like a thrilling secret between them, something over which they threw each other meaningful glances about and shared a connection. 

“Could I by any chance use your wash-rack?” Starscream asked out of the blue. They had powered down uncaring about the mess, mainly because it wasn't overly extensive, but after so many cycles Starscream certainly felt the clotty stickiness behind his panel and longed to wash it away. 

“Sure. Could I join you?” Knockout threw back with a hint of a grin on his face.

Starscream wasn't sure how to answer and suddenly he felt confused. Interfacing had been wonderful but he wasn't sure he wanted a renewal this fast or in the shower of all places. He didn't feel very attractive right now and seriously doubted that Knockout's plans were to just shower, but would it be proper to forbid Knockout from using his own wash-rack?

But before he could come to any conclusion, Knockout solved the dilemma for him by laughing and carelessly swinging his servo. “Oh, I'm just teasing you,” he said. “Go ahead. There are clean towels there, too. Take your time.”

Feeling thankful, Starscream sat up and was just about to hop down when he felt Knockout's servo on his shoulder guard and turned around. 

“Just one thing,” Knockout said, smiling. “Give us a kiss.”

How disgustingly sweet and sentimental, Starscream thought. So tender and romantic, and the first thing in the morning, too. Still he felt his own lipplates bowing into a sheepish smile and he leaned back to give and receive a light little kiss on his intake. 

Knockout flashed him a dazzling smile before flopping down on the berth again, and Starscream hopped off it and wobbled towards the wash-rack. 

Despite being an officer's cabin the wash-rack was small and modest, and Starscream was glad Knockout and he wouldn't be trying to fit in there to shower together. If there had been a theoretical possibility of a quick interface the practice would certainly have been impossible, and their morning would have been full of entirely too much physical contact and awkward jabbing of each other with elbows and, in Starscream's case, wings. 

Starscream turned on the shower and stepped under the stream without bothering to adjust the temperature. He stood still for a moment and just let the liquid rush down his frame before he actually began to clean himself. 

Quickly he wet both of his wings and faceplate before moving on to the lower parts of his frame. He felt around his canopy and thick cables to inspect the extension of the mess, then retracted his panels to wash under them too. There was some transfluid still left on his frame, and under the panels he found traces of his own lubricants, but gently wiping them off with the assistance of the liquid was almost fun. 

It seemed that his private moments with Knockout were full of small reminders how being involved with someone was usually a good thing, like that now he was getting rid of a messy but natural remains of their intimate moment last night, not some shameful piece of evidence. 

Starscream liked these moments. They made him feel more confident. Confident like the charming, smiling, clever Knockout.  
Thinking about the medic smiling and stretching his limbs on the berth made Starscream's spark spin. 

When Starscream stepped out of the wash-rack Knockout stepped in to have his turn, and subtly brushed up against him as he went by. 

Now alone in the cabin Starscream sat down on the edge of the berth and listened to the sound of running liquid behind the door. He looked around the cabin and searched for some signs or details of Knockout's personality but didn't find any. He wondered what Knockout's home back on Cybertron before the war had been like. To his great embarrassment Starscream realized he knew practically nothing about Knockout's life, his past or his experiences during the war. All he knew were the things right there in front of him, and it had never occurred to him to ask more questions even though Knockout had dropped little pieces of information like his home town and a bit about his education background in their conversations. 

Starscream didn't even know which caste Knockout had been a member of or why he had joined the Decepticons. He had wondered what his home had looked like and naively assumed he had had one; many Decepticons hadn't had homes at all.  
Starscream knew for a fact that Megatron himself hadn't ever lived in a house or an apartment, and he was the leader of them all.

A klik afterward Starscream cursed himself: He didn't want to think about Megatron now, not during this beautiful, peaceful morning in the company of his new lover. 

The first lover in a very long time, Starscream suddenly realized. 

The sound of the shower stopped and Knockout stepped out of the wash-rack, shiny and fresh. His optics sought out Starscream on the berth and he smiled that open, kind smile he shone to the seeker's general direction when they were alone, without a trace of his usual sarcasm. 

“Hey, do you want to go and get fuel?” Knockout asked as he crossed the room with lazy steps. 

Now that he mentioned it, Starscream noticed he was in need of energon, he had just ignored the notifications without paying any mind to it. But there was one thing that he had started to think about when Megatron had come to mind.  
“Do you think it's wise for us to leave here together and arrive at the mess at the same time?” he asked.

Knockout frowned. “Well... I don't think anyone will notice. I mean, it is general knowledge that we are friends.” He came to a pause and looked thoughtful. “Are you worried that we'll be discovered and actually punished?”

Starscream didn't answer and just squirmed in his place, but that was answer enough.

Knockout exvented. “Look, you're worrying about nothing. No one will pay any mind to the amount of time we spend together. Besides, you'll attract far more attention to yourself by making a fuss about it than just going with the flow.”

Starscream didn't look entirely convinced but rubbed the side of his neck with his servo and wouldn't meet Knockout's optics. What had been a little joke between them last night and felt like nothing in the post-overload haze was now looming over them and demanding attention. 

Knockout rolled his optics and stepped closer to lay a calming servo on the seeker's shoulder guard. “Look, we're going to be just fine. Our plan is in motion and I have a very positive feeling about it, and if it eases your worry I can promise you here and now that I won't bend you over and snog you senseless on the bridge. Or in any other public place for that matter,” he assured the other mech with a chuckle. 

“Hmm... I'll hold you up to that,” Starscream mumbled back and some of the strain left his posture. “But what about our plan? We hadn't had the time to discuss the results. At first I thought we had failed miserably and that your brilliant idea would get me terminated.”

Knockout pressed his lipplates into a tight line and nodded. “Yeah, I feared the same for a moment there, actually...”

“You did?!”

“Relax! Not seriously, though. Our good Lord was quite shaken, that's all,” Knockout hurried to add and couldn't keep amusement from seeping to his voice. It had been fun to play the honestly concerned doctor and be a source of such moral condemnation and see the usually so stoic and unwavering Lord Megatron struggle to keep his act together before such implications. 

Starscream had a strange look on his faceplate. “Was he, really? Shaken, I mean?”

“Yeah, he was. I didn't even have to say the word 'rape' to him and he was already all antsy and awkward about it,” Knockout huffed and smirked.

Starscream simply nodded as a sign of understanding, but his optics stared past Knockout, unseeing and his expression unreadable. Knockout felt his smirk fading. 

“I find it hard to believe he would be that sorry about hurting me,” Starscream said, and his voice was like his gaze: soft and distant.

For a reason Knockout couldn't quite determine he felt a small prickle of anger at the comment. He wasn't even sure if it was for the content of it or for the tone alone, but the effect was too strong to be ignored either way. “Well, he wasn't. He didn't say anything like that. If he's sorry for anything it is for his own ego and image he has tarnished,” he said with a sharp edge in his tone. 

Starscream gave him a look that told him he had noticed the sour note, but Knockout was just pleased the seeker was looking at him again instead of staring across a dream field. 

“You might be right, doctor,” Starscream admitted and stood up. Knockout had to let go of his shoulder guard and take a step back.  
“Shall we go, then?” Starscream asked.

Knockout nodded. “Sure.”

They left the cabin together but there was no one in the hallway to witness that. 

*

The revival of Cybertron demanded extreme measures and had spawned a rather unconventional laboratory team. Ratchet and Shockwave had settled on a functional working arrangement and were almost comfortable around each other, but Knockout on the other hand felt out of place and out of his league. Being a surgeon usually meant you were on the top of the game, but here his skill set couldn't hold a light bulb to the combined brilliance of Shockwave's scientific expertize and Ratchet's vast knowledge of chemistry, and thus Knockout found himself as a sort of a lab assistant to them both.

“Fetch me the Quantum Cybermeasure,” Ratchet commanded him without even lifting his gaze from his work.

Knockout scoffed with his arms crossed. “Do I look like hired help to you, Autobot?” he asked. 

Shockwave walked over to him and focused his impersonal stare to him. “Knockout, attend to the needs of our esteemed guest.”

“As you command,” he mumbled, defeated. Under the stare of a commanding officer there was no other choice, and so Knockout obeyed. He hated being an outsider like this, but he had to admit his irritation wasn't because of that alone. 

The morning with Starscream hadn't exactly gone like he had hoped it would. His spark pulsed and shivered at the memory of waking up next to the seeker – he had feared Starscream would sneak out during the dark cycles of the night – looking at his smiling face, lying in the warm berth with him, leaning in to give him a casual morning kiss, a moment full of tenderness and love...

Knockout shook himself awake from the memory and realized he had stilled completely with the requested tool in servo and a dreamy, stupid smile on his face. He quickly wiped the smile off and reset his vocalizer, turned around and went back to work.

However he couldn't just stop thinking about this morning. On one moment they had shared the mischievous joy of the plan they had put together, but on the next Starscream's mind was somewhere far away, pondering on Megatron and his so called redeeming value.  
Knockout wasn't a bot who believed in strict good and evil, but if there was one exception confirming the rule it was Lord Megatron. The Lord of the Decepticons had been much more likable as a distant concept, a name without a face to hail to, but a closer look at his almost uncannily alien posture and the absolute ruthlessness and discipline was unsettling to say the least. 

There was nothing natural in Megatron. Only the old “honor and glory” mindset of a gladiator and Megatron's straightforwardness about things prevented him from falling in with the class of chaotic and unpredictable maniacs, but honor and discipline were morally neutral features, not something that makes one good.  
Megatron was evil. That was the only conclusion Knockout could come to, and that evil creature had laid his servos on Starscream.

Knockout thought about the close to a million rude and despicable things Starscream had done and said during the eons they had known each other and the total sum didn't leave him on the good side either, but at least Starscream felt real. He was a real, functioning creation of Primus, with hopes and dreams and weaknesses. There were so many weak spots in the seeker and the pompous, prideful role he kept up for everyone around him, and Knockout saw right through them to the ambitious, mean, dreamer's spark – a terrible, vulnerable, wounded spark, a terrified yet storming self underneath everything. 

Knockout's spark ached with longing. 

He also remembered the moment Starscream had slipped away from him while still in his berth. What had he been thinking about? Dreaming up scenarios where Megatron regretted everything he had done? Apologized to Starscream? 

Starscream accepting the apology? 

Knockout felt a nasty acid-like burn in the back of his intake as he joined Shockwave and Ratchet again with the tool the Autobot had requested. The talk was about the happy accident with the Synthetic Energon that might now end up saving their planet. 

“And to think that had we not let you destroy the beasts, none of this would be possible,” Knockout threw into the conversation with his best light and careless tone to mask his moping.

Too careless, he figured out only a klik too late as he realized he had talked out of turn. 

“Let?” Ratchet repeated. 

Knockout threw a wide-opticed look to Shockwave and hurried to add: “What I meant to say was: those specimens you requested earlier aren't going to prepare themselves, are they?”  
He backed away and prayed with his gaze for Shockwave to save the situation.

“There's much to do and little time, doctor. Shall we get back to work?” Shockwave requested, and Ratchet complied. 

Knockout wasn't sure the Autobot would just forget about what he had said, but backed away to needlessly arrange samples, hoping that he would anyway. 

In his mind Knockout cursed Starscream for occupying his thoughts so fully that he was starting to make stupid amateur mistakes. 

“Knockout,” Shockwave's commanding voice said, “analyze the test results and index them.”

“Yes, sir,” Knockout sighed and occupied one computer console, pulled up Shockwave's reports and started to fill up a table with numbers. It was a tedious job and his mind started to wander again.

Had Starscream even been serious with him?  
Knockout felt his mood plummeting at the thought. He had been certain they had connected for real last night. Truly, intimately, passionately.  
He let the memories flood his processor and the silly smile forced itself back on to his face. 

He thought of Starscream with him in the dark of the berthroom. Starscream carefully inching closer to him, Starscream moaning under his touch, Starscream on top of him, writhing in pleasure and wrapped in a heavily scented haze of electricity, reaching out for him, kissing him... 

A small but not so gentle current of charge bolted through Knockout's systems. He wanted to experience that with Starscream again. The medic was no stranger to casual interface but everything was so different and so much better with someone he actually cared about, and at this point he didn't even think about anyone else.  
He wanted to experience that again. He wanted to ignore the work and the battles and Cybertron and just lock himself into his cabin with Starscream and make love to him until they both would overheat. 

He imagined what it would be like to have Starscream lying on his back and letting the medic between his thighs, wrapping his arms around his neck and holding optic-contact as Knockout would push inside him, into that silken heat. In his fantasy he could feel Starscream's shuddering vents against his faceplate and firmly squeezing thighs around him. He imagined how he'd plant soothing kisses on the corners of the seeker's panting mouth...

He had to yank himself out of the daydream and focus on the work in front of him. He took a subtle look around the lab to check if either one of the other mechs had noticed his glassy stare but both had their backs turned to him. 

The cynical reality returned and Knockout tried to focus on the numbers again. What if he had just coloured the sweet night before with bright neon and all that was just in his mind? Starscream's distant look from earlier rose to his mind again. What if Starscream, for all his struggling and denial, secretly wanted to go back to Megatron?

Knockout felt a lump in his windpipe and tried in vain to swallow it down.  
It would make sense. Starscream had so firmly tied everything about himself to Megatron, everything from his ambitions to his self-esteem, and things had been that way since the beginning of the war – long before Knockout had known Starscream by anything other than a name or been a part of his life. Megatron had been the pole of Starscream's existence for a long time and the warlord's pushing and pulling, rewards and abuse had dictated everything in Starscream's life.

What was Knockout compared to that? Barely anything more than a distraction or a small comfort of firm ground under one's pedes before the storm would sweep him up again.

He was hitting the keyboard far harder than was necessary when Shockwave's voice shook him from his thoughts: “Knockout, I require a fresh CNA sample.”

Knockout exvented harshly and stalked towards the locker where the samples were stored in, grumbling to himself: “Knockout, bring this... Knockout, get that... Apparently fetching is all I'm good for lately.” He opened the locker and scanned the samples with his gaze, looking for the brightest container. “It wasn't that long ago when I used to run this lab. Now I'm everyone's gofer...”

It wasn't that alone that was pissing him off right now, he knew that very well, but it was a good scapegoat and prevented him from lashing out.  
Not that it would solve his problem.  
This whole thing might have been a bad idea all along, he bitterly admitted.

From the corner of his optic Knockout spotted the Autobot looking like he was searching for something.

“Yes?” he said, raising on optic ridge. 

Ratchet spun around. “The... The Isoprobe! I... Don't see one,” he explained. 

“What a surprise,” Knockout huffed and walked over to the nearby table to look for one. All his tools were scattered all around the laboratory. It wasn't like he himself usually kept them in a good order, but at least when he was the only bot in the lab he knew where everything was. 

“Here,” Knockout snapped as he thrust the tool to Ratchet and was already walking past him when the Autobot decided to go: “Thank you!”

Knockout froze in place and turned to look at the doctor. It had been a long while since anyone had bothered with simple manners around here. 

“You're welcome!” he answered. He was instantly in a better mood. Funny how that went.

The laboratory's comm system buzzed on and Megatron's voice spoke: “Shockwave! Assembly of the Omega Lock is entering the final stage. Your guidance is required.”

“Understood, my liege,” Shockwave replied immediately. “Knockout, supervise our guest in my absence.” 

The door shuffled open and Shockwave stepped out, and just when Knockout had turned to deliver a quiet snark after him, someone else stepped in to the lab in the scientist's stead. 

“Aah, it warms one's spark to see such solidarity in the name of home and science,” Starscream sniggered with a grin to Ratchet as he strode in with long, lazy steps and his arms behind his back. Ratchet didn't grace the seeker with a reply, simply eyed him with great distaste and loathing before turning away with a huff. Starscream just smirked. 

Knockout put the sample he had been handling back on the table and walked up to Starscream. The seeker turned to face him in turn and his smirk softened. 

“What are you doing here, Herr Kommandant?” Knockout asked, louder than usual and with a finish of cold indifference. 

Starscream tilted his helm in confusion and stilled. He clearly hadn't expected a tone like that, but after a klik he threw a look at Ratchet and seemed to catch the medic's drift. 

“I am performing my duty, my dear doctor,” Starscream answered, inspecting his talons. “A word, please?”

Knockout nodded. They didn't step outside the lab because of the guards outside, but stood close to the wall next to the door. 

“Right, be quick with it, Starscream. What do you want?” Knockout mumbled. All of his earlier pondering and worrying hadn't faded yet, and he heard a harsh tone in his voice as he spoke to the seeker but couldn't bring himself to care much. 

Starscream frowned at him but didn't comment. “Uh, right... I just...” he reset his vocalizer and attempted to smooth his frown but couldn't stop himself from giving the medic an inspecting look. He had obviously wished for a different treatment. 

Knockout realized he was annoyed by Starscream's hesitance and confusion. Like he would or even could rush to meet him, wrap him in his arms and kiss him for a greeting. It had been Starscream's, not his, worry that they might appear suspiciously intimate to others, after all. 

“I thought it would be appropriate to come to see you before I take off,” Starscream mumbled. He shifted restlessly on his pedes. 

“Take off?” Knockout repeated. He felt like his spark had dropped on the bottom of its chamber and flattened like a dying firefly. 

Starscream nodded. “A mission. We have a tail and I'm going to terminate it. Laserbeak's signal was detected and it's approaching. An... An Autobot trick, our liege suspects.”

Knockout's mind raced to add two and two together, and he suddenly felt a tingle of fear. “If it's an airborne tail then the bot tracking is the only Autobot capable of flight,” he said. “Have you come to say goodbye?! How fragging morbid, Starscream!” 

Starscream rolled his optics. “Phah! I'm a seeker of Vos, Knockout! Prime might be capable of flight but I am built for it! There's no way he will bring me down.”

And there was that blasted arrogance again, that blind pride in the name of a city that had fallen eons ago. On that moment Knockout hated Vos and its memory and everything it stood for, that stupid one syllable name that Starscream wore like a shield from Primus himself and charged into danger like the fool he was. 

A flare of anger muted Knockout so he couldn't spit anything sarcastic at the seeker no matter how much he wanted to, and the same anger was clearly displayed across his faceplate. Starscream looked confused and a little bit hurt as he leaned back and stared at the medic, expecting something, anything, before he would really have to leave. 

Knockout grabbed a hold of Starscream's faceplate and yanked him down, and Starscream didn't have time to voice any protests before he was being kissed. He didn't struggle but wasn't able to participate in the kiss either because of Knockout's strong grip on him and the forceful press of lipplates against his. 

When Knockout let go Starscream straightened up right away but instead of anger his expression was pure confusion. 

“You should be going,” Knockout reminded him. 

“Yes... Yes, indeed... I... Hm. As you were, doctor,” Starscream stuttered, aiming at some level of professionalism. 

“I look forward to reporting back to you after you return, Herr Kommandant.” 

Starscream staggered out of the laboratory and Knockout watched him go with a smug feeling of satisfaction. 

He turned around and saw Ratchet staring at him. 

Knockout raised an optic ridge. “What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end, folks!  
> Thanks for staying with the story, and a big Thank You to everyone who left a comment and/or a kudos on this fic. The number of kudos reached a hundred just a day or two ago and that made me so happy!
> 
> On this chapter: My beta commented that Knockout's daydreaming is literally "not safe for work": He's a hazard to the Decepticon cause.  
> Also Ratchet is judging his taste in company so hard.


	9. Sudden death

Starscream left the laboratory feeling cold and empty, and it made him irritated. The warmth that the kiss had sparked in him faded quickly when the entirety of the scene played back in his mind and the big picture wasn't full of the electric haze and the sweetness which he had expected without realizing it. 

When he had given in to the impulse to make a detour through the laboratory Starscream had been bothered by a persistent feeling of something being off, and his basic instinct had told him that the craving could be sated by seeing Knockout before taking off, just like hunger could be sated by fueling and overheating by drinking coolant. 

But the visit had been unsatisfactory, and the more the seeker dwelled in the memory the more unhappy he became. In retrospect he realized he what he was feeling was disappointment, but couldn't really say why since he didn't know what he had wanted to happen in the first place. It certainly hadn't been that, though. 

Knockout had been so cold and uncaring towards him when he had arrived.  
Starscream was used to Knockout's sharp looks, his sarcasm and the exaggerated rolls of his optics, shrugs and huffs, the whole show, but this was something new that had slipped through the carefully constructed social armor of his. 

The medic had certainly been on edge – so was everyone else aboard – but there had been a hint of something unfamiliar in the tone he had greeted the seeker with, something that had pricked like a hidden needle in the midst of soft mesh. 

Indifference was something that Starscream couldn't handle. He could take anger, disgust and mockery, sometimes even lavish in it and enjoy being the center of attention, but indifference made him feel like he didn't actually exist at all, like if someone was to simply sweep their gaze past him he would turn invisible and cease to exist.

All that was somehow worse when coming from Knockout. Starscream felt like that tone had dislocated something emotional inside of him.

The Eradicon unit was ready and alert on the flight deck when Starscream arrived. They saluted as he walked past them and took his place at the front of the formation, then waited patiently for the Commander's signal to charge and take flight. 

It wasn't raining yet, but the mass of gunmetal gray clouds loomed over them, low and heavy, and Starscream lead his unit into the cover they offered. 

 

The doors of the laboratory slid shut behind the Air Commander and Knockout felt just about as unfulfilled as Starscream did in the hallway. He had been working up some proper displeasure that had started to evolve into anger but was now left swirling around without a target, bottled up inside Knockout's chassis and gaining pressure rapidly. He felt restless and agitated and just wished he had someone or something to take it all out on. 

Even Ratchet's stare annoyed him more than it should have had. The Autobot hadn't actually even commented anything but turned back to work right when Knockout had tried to confront him, and besides, the opinion of the enemy shouldn't even matter. Somehow, it strangely did.

The spontaneous kiss hadn't drained the tension or relieved any of the doubts that weighed Knockout's spark, and he was beginning to regret it now. 

Knockout could guess what the doctor was thinking about him. The Autobot probably held nothing but resentment towards Starscream, the infamous second-in-command of the Decepticons, the unpredictable and cruel seeker, the killer of their team member. Ratchet was most likely privately judging Knockout for his taste in companions, maybe trying not to laugh at him or maybe even planning how to use their connection against them. 

Could their relationship work as a leverage against Starscream? With a chilly displeasure Knockout realized he couldn't rely on that.

The thought led him to ponder on the same situation but reversed: Could he be threatened or black-mailed if Starscream's well-being was at stake? He didn't have a clear answer, and his mood kept growing sourer. The loss of Breakdown had been a heavy blow, and he knew he had been procrastinating grieving and that it was having a negative effect on him.  
Keeping Cylas alive had been his last resort to put the grief off, and he had been fully aware of the method's unorthodox nature even while practicing it, but now the most urgent thought about it was how he had told Starscream it didn't really matter to him that it was Breakdown's husk.

It hadn't mattered, Breakdown's spark was gone and one with the creator, but Starscream had been clearly disturbed. The seeker had relished in Cylas's agony just like Knockout had done, but maybe he had also taken Knockout's comment as a sign that the grounder couldn't be trusted? 

Knockout's processor jammed and ached. 

His audio receptors caught the first nanoklik of a blaring sound of an explosion before they were knocked offline and the feed played back only white noise. Temperature flared up in the matter of kliks and black smoke filled the air, its heavy stinging smell numbing his aroma detectors. 

“What?!” Knockout shouted without hearing his own voice and spun around to search for the source of the disturbance. His gaze fell on the examination table that was on fire, the flames feeding on the chemicals and spreading rapidly.

“It's the formula's instability!” yelled Ratchet over the noise of the fire, probably trying to reboot his own hearing just like Knockout was. “It must have triggered a chain-reaction!”

The spreading fire, the ever-thickening black smoke that burned in the optics and seemed to clog the windpipe... The day really couldn't get any worse.

“Guards!” Knockout yelled over the noise, but the door was already open and the two vehicons who had been standing guard outside rushed in, ready to help – and perfect for Knockout to take some of his frustration out on. “Put this mess out before it ruins the lab! And _my finish_!” he snapped at the fumbling soldiers and shoved the one who happened to stand close enough. 

The smoke was thick, making it almost impossible to detect anything visually. Knockout tried to clear it by fanning his servo, but all in vain. He coughed into his fist and tried to blink away the clearing fluid that welled up into his optics. The two soldiers had put away their weapons and taken down an extinguishing cover down from the wall and attempted to suffocate the fire. The flames were dying down, but it seemed that less fire meant more smoke. 

Another fit of forceful coughing trembled Knockout's windpipe and he turned to seek for the Autobot. “See, it's fine, everything is under control and - “

Knockout paused mid-sentence and blinked. The Autobot was nowhere in sight, and it took him only a short moment to become certain he wasn't just in the midst of smoke or covering anywhere, he was gone. The medic swore and launched at the nearest console and contacted the bridge. 

“Lord Megatron?” he called while nervously tapping at the edge of the table with his foredigit.

Barely two kliks went by before Megatron's scruffy voice answered: “Yes? What is it?”

Knockout reset his vocalizer and tried to find a diplomatic way to express the trouble: “Uh...We have a problem down here... Or more like a, uh, complication, nothing serious but -” 

As always, Megatron wasn't one for diplomacy, and the grinding of denta could almost be heard through the line: “Spit. IT. OUT!” 

Knockout didn't have much of a choice, and the damage was already done anyway. “The prisoner has escaped!”

Megatron's roar of frustration echoed in the room and made the two Vehicons still struggling with the now significantly smaller fire jump. Knockout couldn't really blame them. He also heard the sound of the warlord's heavy steps distancing from the console on the bridge, and that told him Megatron was about to deal with the matter personally. Knockout had great trust in Megatron's ability to engage the enemy – that much anyone had to hand to him – so he would have the Autobot to take out his fury upon and Knockout and the rest of the involved crew would be safe. He cut the comm line and cast the subject from his mind. It would be Megatron's problem to deal with now. 

He turned to the Vehicons, now flapping the smoke with their servos and turning over the burned equipment on the remains of the examination table, scavenging for surviving tools. Knockout strode to the table too, pushed the nearest bot out of his way and examined what was left of his tools. He pulled the blackened remains of an isoprobe out of the mess of a former centrifuge. He stared at the little carcass of the equipment and squeezed it in his fist until the scorched metal started to give. 

“Rude,” he spat and tossed the tool away. 

*

Starscream felt oddly charged and sharp when he came through the groundbridge on the flight deck. He transformed before completing the landing and enjoyed the screeching sound the heels of his pedes made against the deck before his glide came to a halt. It had finally started to rain and each drop that hit his frame made a hiss as the heated metal vaporized it. 

The ground bridge powered down before finally zapping into nothingness behind him, and Starscream was left alone with the howling wind and the drumming rain on the flight deck. He could smell a metal burn on his side where one a bit luckier shot from Prime had grazed him, and his mind was taken over by that same strange clarity he had felt when he was convinced he would be torn apart by a mob of thirsty terrorcons. The determination it brought was channeling the anger the previous irritation had swollen into. 

Once again he was the last bot standing. The cold terror of a battlefield turned itself inside out and revealed the flying colours of the best flyer of the unit, the lone survivor, superior to all those who had fallen around him. Once a piece of base coding would have popped up and made him turn left and right to regard his trine and exchange victorious smiles. His processor had a long ago deemed that piece of code obsolete and gotten rid of it.

Starscream started the slow stride across the empty flight deck towards the airlock. The extra heat was slowly leaving his frame as the battle protocols fell offline and his ventilation system worked in tandem with the cold air and rain. He was worth more than this. He knew that failing to pull your team out from a hot spot was usually a shameful thing, but he refused to see it like that: These weren't his seekers, these weren't his loyal troops, and he had no trine here to back him up. All these winged machines who dared to call themselves flyers were nothing but inferior models, and his lone walk across the deck was nothing more than a proof of this.

He was alone, alone in his class and excellence, unmatched and unbound. 

Starscream didn't need anyone and no one deserved him anyway. These feelings were tumbling inside him like a core of a reactor and his sudden clarity focused the fury like a lens the rays of light. He didn't deserve to be used and owned by others around him, he was better than that. He was more than the sum of his parts, more than his frame or even his skills and intelligence, he was a whole individual, a sentient being with thoughts and dreams and a view of the world, all absolutely unique and complex. Starscream refused to be reduced into a machine to be abused and thrown away when the abuser had had enough of him, refused this with a burning fury although at the moment the only ones calling him that were the voices and memories in his own mind. 

The air-lock hissed open and Starscream strode to the dark hallways of the Nemesis, past the guards who saluted him and down towards the lower levels where he had business to deal with. Everything was crystal clear and his fury only fueled up and burned brighter as he walked; It was amazing what the fear of termination did to your attitude. 

Starscream came to a lift and stepped in. The lift had barely stopped on the deck he had wanted to go when he sprang into movement again. The yellow alarm was on but he didn't pay it much mind: if it were truly important, the alarm would be blaring red. 

He turned from the corner and came to the hallway that led to the main laboratories aboard, and in the hallway he saw several crew members cleaning up and dragging away ruined pieces of equipment, and Knockout issuing orders to them while rubbing black smudges off of his paint.

Starscream stilled at the crossing of the corridors. “Doctor!” he barked, his voice carrying well in the empty space and gaining everyone's attention. 

Knockout's helm snapped up and to his direction, but his expression didn't lighten up or change in any way that Starscream realized he had hoped for. His insides ran cold, the energon in his pipes turning into icy slosh and he made a decision. 

“We need to have a little chat, doctor,” Starscream grunted to Knockout, turned around before the other mech had time to answer and started to lead the way, leaving Knockout with no other option but to follow. 

The medic sensed something was wrong. It was written all over Starscream's ice-cold mannerism, emotionless, sharp-edged voice and his carefully tugged in EM field that buzzed like a swarm of scraplets gnawing at a junk of metal, but Knockout hadn't let go of his earlier annoyance either and was maybe a bit misguidedly glad about this confrontation 

Starscream led the way away from the laboratory, away from the storages and away from any curious crew members before he spun around and regarded Knockout with narrowed optics.

“Alright, then,” he began. “Out with it. What is your deal here, Doctor?”

Knockout raised an optic ridge and stilled his servo that was trying to dust off smutch. “My deal?”

Starscream scoffed impatiently. “Yes, your deal! Why were you so rude and cold towards me before?! What do you want?! Explain yourself!”

“Why are you snapping at me?” Knockout threw back, purposely ignoring the direct question and jumping in on the arising argument with his own intentions. The annoyance, frustration and the dumb incident in the laboratory all seemed to fuse into one and burst free through his vocalizer.

Starscream snarled in distaste and frustration. His servos were behind his back and he squeezed one with the other, digging his talons into the thin seams of his digits. 

“I am not snapping at you, I am demanding answers,” he hissed through his denta. “And I think you owe me that much. What is your angle, huh? Spit it out! Or are you afraid to have an open argument, hmm?”

“Well, aren't you the one to talk about traits of cowardice, Screamer,” Knockout growled back, leaning forward and squaring his shoulders to make his heavier build make up for the seeker's greater height.

Something about the comment made Starscream's faceplate flush with heat and his optics opened wide in scandalized bewilderment. “How dare you?!” was the only thing that came out of his mouth as a shriek before he could think about or stop it. His wings sprang up and flattened against each other with a clang that echoed in the corridor. 

Knockout blinked. He didn't have more than barely a nanoklik to take in Starscream's utterly insulted posture before the seeker shifted again. The wings flared open and lowered into a dangerous angle, his arms came from behind his back to press against his sides, trembling balls of fists squeezing so hard the joints strained and the gaze in the red optics grew in brightness but at the same time darkened.

“You made me trust you,” Starscream said in a strained hiss, the words barely intelligible. “You made me... I can't believe you... you!”

Knockout stood still and quiet and stared, preoccupied with his internal struggle instead of figuring out how to answer the seeker who was shaking with barely restrained wrath.  
It felt like half of Knockout was still bitter and angry and above all wounded, and that side was getting some flavor of cruel enjoyment out of Starscream's distress and anger as well as satisfaction. The side was feeding off the hurt and insults, growing bolder and bigger and thirsting for more, more anger, more fighting, let's fight together! 

He was angry, Starscream was angry, and the part of him loved it this way. They were connecting again, they were on the same wavelength again, even if on the negative end of the spectrum. 

The other part of him, the rational one, Knockout reflected, was begging him to slow down and contain the situation. The instant gratification of satisfying the anger with arguing wouldn't be worth the damage it would cause!

He didn't come into any conclusion but remained frozen and quiet, and kept his expression as hard and unresponsive as he could manage.

Starscream pulled back his upper lipplating and bared his denta in a vicious snarl. “Are you not even going to say anything?” he spat out with a thin voice, like every word had to be forced out of his vocalizer. “You're just... Just going to stand there and expect me to finish this?! Is that what you want?! You got what you came for and now you're not even going to put me out of my misery?!”

That pushed Knockout into motion. He winced and straightened up, an alarm went off in his processor and made his EM field waver. Starscream's field was absolutely livid. It blazed and raged and pushed the other mech away like actual physical heat of a fire.

Knockout realized that the ultimatum the seeker spat against his face had scared him, but still the only thing he managed was a confused and breathless: “What?”

The under-reaction only fed Starscream's rage. He threw his helm back and a his wings fluttered again.

“Is that it, then? You got to do me and now you're going to throw me away?” Starscream asked. His voice was frighteningly steady all of a sudden and his expression was that of utter disgust instead of raging anger. “Well... I must say you played your part very convincingly, doctor. I almost believed that you cared.” 

At that moment Starscream was almost scared of himself. The amazing clarity was still there, but revealing another side of itself: He was floating above all natural emotion and sensation. His voice was steady and the trembling had stopped, all the rage was suddenly gone and replaced with dead cold serenity. He felt like his plating was being peeled from his frame with hot pinchers and his spark chamber torn out, and he didn't care. 

Knockout stood still and stared. His intake was slightly open but he didn't say anything. Starscream found this unresponsiveness was sparking his anger again. It annoyed and frustrated him that the other didn't say anything. Didn't he think he was worthy of at least a reply?!

“REACT, IN THE NAME OF PRIMUS!” Starscream shrieked and stomped his pede for good measure. 

Knockout jumped again, and part of his previous arrogant spite returned. “Will you stop yelling?!” he snapped. “I don't know what in the pit you are even angry about! How do you expect me to react to this... this absurd scene you're throwing!?”

“You're the one who's being absurd! You're avoiding my questions, mocking me and rubbing your conquest of me in my face!” He vented heavily for a moment. His faceplate was still burning with heat. “And now you're trying to make it look like this is my fault! Like I brought this upon myself! Well, this may be news for you but this isn't on me, I'm better than that! I won't be just another trophy in someone's collection!” 

Knockout stared at the seeker for a moment again. He was slowly starting to realize what Starscream was rambling on about, but it still didn't explain why he had started the argument in the first place. “I'm not using you, you melodramatic malware,” he huffed. “Why are you even angry at me?! You're the one who's been weird all morning and kept things from me!”

Starscream paused. He seemed to weigh the words but putting off the decision of whether to believe them or not. He shifted with unease. “But you... You called me...” he stuttered. 

“Well, I didn't mean it like that,” Knockout mumbled back. He regretted the suggestive contortion he had made out of Starscream's name; he should have known how the seeker would take it. A wave of shame flooded him and momentarily forced his selfish anger down under. He had seriously over-stepped with the name-calling and jabbed through Starscream's armor into a very tender place.

He had done so before without knowing just how much comments like that would hurt Starscream, considering his situation and all, but now that he _knew_ and had still said it it was even worse. 

He took a deep intake of air and shook his helm like he could clear the air around them just by doing that. “Look,” he began and forced himself to sound calm. “I apologize. I didn't mean to... go there.”

Starscream stared at him with the sting of an acid burn, and they both swayed awkwardly on their places. 

“You still haven't answered my original question,” Starscream grunted. 

Knockout frowned. “What was that again?”

Starscream's vents puffed and he flashed a brief show of denta again. “I asked you what your goal is here. You haven't been honest with me during the time we've had this... _thing_ going on, so now be out with it. What is it that you want?”

Knockout's servo rose up and returned to trying to rub the black spots off of his paint without him thinking about it. It wasn't like Starscream to go head on with things and he was caught off guard, even with the previous build up. He gave an aggravated sigh. “I still don't know what you mean by that!”

“For example, this back and forth game with jealousy that you've played with me,” Starscream said. “First you said you were jealous of me, then suddenly you weren't because that's not ' _healthy and responsible_ ' or whatever condescending nonsense you spouted at me, but you certainly act like you are!” He rolled his optics and tilted his head for emphasis when he mocked the medic and received a nasty look in return. 

“Well I'm sorry for trying to be good to you,” Knockout spat like a mouthful of venom. 

Starscream huffed. “Answer me.”

Frustrated Knockout gestured wildly for a moment without knowing what to say. He was ashamed of his own behavior and scared of the pit it had dug for them. The situation hadn't gone at all like he had imagined it before and the anger inside of him started to turn on itself, but then again he didn't know how he had expected lashing out would have ended up as anything other but a total mess. 

“I just – I just want to be with you!” he blurted out without knowing where the words were coming from. “I want us to be together and... and I have a routine, okay? I have a tactic for getting casual affection, but I haven't felt like this since the beginning of the war and I don't know how to show that to you! And it sickens me that you'd go back to him! I risked my own spark in our plan to wrench you free, remember?! How isn't that not proof of that I really mean what I say?!”

Starscream's expression shifted as he listened, first from icy scorning to disbelief and then angry confusion.

“I'm not going back to him, you idiot! Why would you even say that?!”

The bitter anger inside Knockout let go of its own tail to turn on the seeker again. He could barely believe what he was hearing. “This morning, remember?! After the first night we spend together, all you need is a little remark that he might be sorry and suddenly you're gone!” 

Starscream looked uneasy and averted his optics from Knockout's gaze. That little turn of a helm tore on Knockout's insides. 

“I don't want to go back,” Starscream said while staring at a wall. 

“And what if I say I don't believe you?” Knockout pressed.

Starscream whirled his face towards the other mech again, his features twisting into a defiant expression. “Well I don't care what you believe or don't believe! I said I don't want to, and you should listen to me!”

Knockout didn't have any more words to offer or any more aggression to spend, so he just looked back at the seeker whose face dared him to keep arguing. But he didn't want to anymore. His chassis had a hollow ache and the looming threat of things falling apart made him feel helpless, so he didn't see any reason to keep fighting. 

When the silence had stretched for what Starscream deemed a suitable time the seeker accepted the surrender. He didn't feel like fighting anymore. Everything was a mess. He hadn't ever seen Knockout this angry before and it was somewhat upsetting, and despite his now faded clarity of mind and the high of the last mech standing, the thought of Knockout abandoning him made him feel uncertain and afraid. 

He had heard and registered how Knockout had described the feeling he had for him but hadn't dared to address the issue directly, and now the moment had certainly passed. Even though Knockout had lowered his verbal weapons first and thus let Starscream have the final word, he still felt the restlessness of unfinished business and bleak unhappiness gnawing on his insides. 

“Come, doctor,” Starscream said and was internally frightened how tired his voice sounded, “let us go back to the bridge. I'm sure we are needed there.”

Knockout gave him a look that was at least as weary as Starscream's voice, and then nodded.

Neither one said anything during their walk or the lift ride up to the bridge. They didn't even look at each other, nor did they reach out to touch. The silence wasn't so much heavy as it was tired, but it hung over them like a depressive storm cloud that had released its thunder but not rained yet, only hovering there, and since neither one wanted to be the one to break it and clear things up, it stayed over them. 

Once Knockout tried to let his EM field slip slightly past the normal social range, but Starscream had tugged his own field in so tightly it was practically nonexistent. The cold void spooked Knockout enough to not to try that again. 

The way to the bridge felt longer than ever before, and when they finally arrived, no one acknowledged their arrival. Megatron had his back turned to them and Soundwave was hunched over the command console, typing away as always, and when Starscream halted before the catwalk, Knockout did the same. 

Shockwave's emotionless voice came through the comm link: “Lord Megatron, the synthesis of the cyber-matter required to cyberform Earth has commenced.”

“Splendid, Shockwave,” Megatron almost chuckled before turning to Soundwave. “Move the Omega Lock into position. I want to be ready.”

As always, orders flowed from the Lord of the Decepticons with natural ease, and the loyal Soundwave hurried to comply. 

To his great distaste Knockout realized he respected that about Megatron. He truly had lived up to his reputation and more, never failing to be the ruthless, absolute leader he had vowed to be, and even if the morals of his lead were debatable there was no question about its strength or certainty. Bizarrely, it was safe here. 

Carefully Knockout stole a glance at the seeker beside him from the corner of his optic. Starscream was standing still with his chin up but the gaze of his optics dull, staring ahead. Knockout didn't linger enough to determine what that meant but turned away. 

“At last,” Starscream said in a quiet voice. 

Knockout turned to look at him fully now, but the seeker wasn't looking at him.

“Good riddance to a wretched species,” the seeker finished but without any trace of satisfaction or glee, just the bleakness of a traveler who had finally reached the destination and was allowed to finally sit down for a moment. 

Knockout didn't dare to say anything. He would have had a remark about the Terran automobiles that he rather liked, but something about Starscream made him keep it to himself. The seeker was projecting an impression that was at the same time completely emotionless, but in a listless way almost eager to see the purge of an entire species. Earth was a place of torment and pain to Starscream, and wiping all organic life out and replacing the mud and water with shiny metal would probably feel like amputating a rusting limb. It was terrifying to watch.

“It's going to end here, Knockout,” Starscream muttered under his breath so quietly that Knockout struggled to understand him and had to lean closer.

The seeker turned his helm towards the other. His optics held a dim look and a hint of a smile stirred his lipplates. He looked very calm, almost kind, but also deeply, endlessly sad.  
“I love you. But everything will end soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no see, my darling readers!  
> I'm sorry this update took this long, but I'm all the mroe happy to present this new chapter to you now. Writing this was an emotional roller-coaster and I certainly hope you got to ride a similar one while reading. Also, I really like the name of this chapter.
> 
> Oh, our sweetsparks... The scores are about to be settled on all fronts. Can they make it through the night or are they doomed to become star-crossed lovers, never to see each other again? How romantic would that be.
> 
> But in all seriousness, we have only one more chapter left! After over a hundred pages the conclusion is nearing, and I'm very excited. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading, and thanks to everyone who left kudos and commented on the previous chapters!  
> If you liked this, leave a kudos and/or a comment.


	10. Game over

The emergency protocols of the Nemesis were activated. The loud siren blared through the hallways, the sound bouncing off the walls of the bridge. The lights brightened and dimmed again with the alarm to emphasize the warning, and all four officers on the bridge jerked up. Starscream's servos darted behind his back and his talons clutched together.

Only a few kliks after the noise the emergency comm line activated. A panting vehicon crewmember had managed to reach a comm station and was yelling, blaster fire as his background noise: “Lord Megatron! Predaking is on a rampage through the sh– _agh_!”

The line cut abruptly, accompanied by a screeching metallic sound, like large talons shredding steel like it was paper. 

Starscream felt his tanks turn. This could mean only that the beast had finally given up any pretense that it was something more than a mindless monster, and was now ready to tear apart everything on its path.  
While Starscream was worrying and fidgeting, it took Megatron only a couple of kliks to put two and two together and bring himself up to the situation: “The Autobot lives?!”

Starscream flinched at the sudden raise in the warlord's voice but otherwise managed to keep his cool. He was more puzzled by how Megatron cared more about one lowly Autobot medic than the fact that a predacon was stomping through their warship, slaughtering their crew and rapidly making his way toward them. But nevertheless, the decision about the best course of action wasn't up to Starscream.  
He didn't have to wait for long though, because Megatron didn't waste any more time on his own frustration: He was nothing if not adaptable. 

The warlord turned on his heel and began to make his way out of the bridge as he barked orders: “Soundwave, keep our course steady. The Omega Lock is your number one priority, don't allow anything to compromise that!”

The silent mech nodded in acknowledgment and carried on piloting as Megatron passed Starscream and Knockout.

“You two, come with me,” he said to them, making them both snap to attention. 

Before Megatron's order Starscream had almost forgotten the medic beside him, but now recalled his presence as they were both spoken to. An odd mixture of fear and numbness filled Starscream, and even though he threw a glance at the medic – who stared back at him with burning optics – he didn't feel much of anything. He looked away as he took his place by Megatron's side, and Knockout lingered a few steps behind him.

Megatron led the way, and Starscream hurried up his steps to keep up. The seeker kept throwing nervous glances up at the warlord every now and then.

“So... What is our course of action, my Lord?” he asked, talons rubbing together and peeling off small flakes of silver paint. 

Megatron didn't spare him one look and kept his helm low and gaze determinedly ahead. He was in no hurry but strode ahead with clear purpose, his EM field blazing with intention that Starscream had learned to fear over the past eons. 

“Simple, Starscream. I will face the beast machine and offline him,” Megatron said, “with my bare servos if I have to.”

Starscream couldn't stop the frightful shiver that ran down his spinal strut and his wings twitched nervously. He had a gloomy prediction that he would stand next to Megatron when they faced the beast, and he didn't like the idea at all, especially since the plan to terminate the predacons had been Starscream's idea in the first place. If Megatron wanted to get rid of him, he'd just have to reveal that to the mangy beast and let the seeker become its newest chew toy.

He might even prove to be the bargaining chip Megatron could use to pacify the beast. Starscream's energon felt like it was freezing in his pipes when he realized that was what _he_ would do.

But what Starscream would do was usually the exact opposite of Megatron's preferred way of action. Their end would probably be much more simple: A last mad attempt to stand up in a fair fight.

“Ah... My Lord, if I may remind you... The predacon is a rather... mighty opponent. Even for you,” Starscream said, desperately trying to remind Megatron that the predacon had proven to be extremely difficult to terminate and that the closed space of their ship wasn't really the best place to have a show-down with it, but doing so without implying that Megatron was weak on the side. 

The warlord gave a chuckle. “I am well aware of the strength of my enemy, Starscream, as well as of the tactical difficulties we face. Let's see how 'his majesty' fares against the mightiest weapon in our vault, the Dark Starsaber!” 

The mentioning of the weapon made a twinkle of hope light up in Starscream's chassis but it was almost immediately dimmed by the realization how far away the weapons vault was from them. The seeker considered the predacon's size and speed against the supposed distance between it and them, and the odds didn't look very good. Predaking was definitely tearing through their crew easily like he was swapping lone scraplets, and he would reach them any moment now.

Starscream lowered his wings enough so he could sneak a look to Knockout over his shoulder. He was instantly met with the steady gaze of the grounder's optics, and somehow Starscream got the feeling he had been staring at the back of his helm for a while now, trying to will the seeker to turn around and meet his gaze.  
But Starscream didn't know what to make of the look or the emotions behind it. Had he been any less selfish a mech he might have regretted his sudden confession back on the bridge and how it apparently had upset the medic. Maybe it had been unfair to just spit out something like that without a forewarning and in a situation where Knockout had limited chances to react or respond, but as established, Starscream didn't really care. He had said what he needed to say, and that was it. He turned his helm ahead again. 

The floor underneath them shook, and as soon as the three of them came to a crossing of corridors, a lifeless husk of a vehicon was flung through the air towards them.

Megatron stood still, unwavering as ever while Starscream staggered behind him. The husk of the crew member landed on the floor with a clang several feet from them, the impact sending it bouncing up in the air once again before tumbling down and rolling across the floor, the unnaturally twisted plating and support structures jutting out of it screeching and sparking against the floor. The husk stilled before Megatron's pedes, and the warlord gave it a brief glance before meeting the optics of the mech who had thrown it.

Predaking was holding two more vehicons, one in each servo, both offline but the barrels of their blasters still visibly hot. Predaking discarded the husks like the scrap metal that they were and stalked towards the three officers, his blazing optics focused on Megatron.

“Megatron! Is it true, that you ordered the annihilation of my army!?” he demanded with a roar.

Megatron took a step forward, tilting his helm as if stretching his neckcabling. “Indeed,” he smoothly admitted, “and my only mistake was to not seeing the extermination through!”

For the first time since the bridge Knockout spoke. “I'll just go and fetch... that thing we talked about,” he quietly said, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb before turning and bolting back to the way they had came, taking a detour to the weapons vault. 

Starscream spared the medic a look, numbly aware that it might be the last one he got, but Megatron didn't make one gesture to show if he had heard Knockout or not. A long flat sword manifested from Megatron's right arm with a metallic hiss.

Starscream took a calculated side-step aside and into the nearby corridor as Predaking bared his impressive talons, the beast's rage pulsing off him and electrifying the atmosphere of the hallway.  
Megatron put his pede forward and took a defending pose with his sword raised up by his helm and pointed at Predaking, a clear challenge, a sign that the time for talking was over.

 _I was right_ , ran through Starscream's mind. He couldn't believe he had been right, the madmech wasn't even going to stall and wait for the proper weapon, he was just going to engage the beast right here, right now!  
He should have known, really. Starscream scolded himself slightly even though his shock, but couldn't bring himself to feel even the faintest bit of relief that Megatron hadn't just kicked him to the beast. He was going to die here anyway, right beside Megatron of all bots in the universe.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

He didn't have any more time for his internal panic. Predaking charged. 

Metal crashed and screeched when the two warriors collided. Megatron's sword struck past Predaking's helm, but the beast's claws scrabbled empty air as well. Both had seized a hold of the other with their servos, each trying to tip the other's balance, the tension rapidly growing. They shook ever so slightly, their hydraulics straining and howling in high frequency noise, never looking away from the blaze of each other's optics. Predaking growled, a small puff of exhaust of his in-built blaster raising from the corners of his intake, and Megatron bared his sharp denta in return.

Starscream wobbled further away from the pair even though he had a feeling there was no such thing as a safe distance. The static state of the fight would soon crack when one of them would either gain better footing or win the wrestle of raw power, and who knew where the battle would go from there? One thing the seeker knew for sure: he didn't want to end up in the way of dozens of tons of tumbling metal and fury.

Finally the struggle resolved in Predaking's favor and they exploded into movement again. The beast roared, twisted his frame and used the exertion to lever Megatron off balance, crushing the mech into a wall, then throwing them both across the hallway to smash him against the other one. 

Megatron roared half with rage and half with pain as his back hit the corridor wall, but with the practiced ease of a gladiator he kept his chin against his chassis and avoided his helm colliding with the wall, all the while trying to pierce Predaking's defense with his sword. 

“You will pay for what you've done to my kind!” Predaking roared in frustration, then in one burst of strength flung Megatron across the air and down the corridor like he weighed nothing. 

Megatron grunted when he hit the floor with a spray of bright sparks flying around him. He brought the slide to a halt quickly, pulled his pedes under himself again, pressing his frame upright again and was standing up before his opponent managed to close the distance between them. 

“We'll see about that in a moment! You haven't yet fully realized who you have challenged!” Megatron spat back, bracing himself for the impact.

Predaking leaped, transformed in the air and landed on four paws, charging towards the warlord, each step on the floor like a minor earthquake. 

Megatron was ready to receive his opponent and covered his helm and midsection with his arms, successfully seizing a steady hold of the beast's muzzle and keeping his sharp denta from tearing into him, but the impact of the charging predacon was too much for him to hold back. They tumbled backwards through the doors to the room with an airlock, both mechs as one bundle of blades and flashing denta, orange and yellow sparks showering them when they dragged against the walls and the ceiling. 

Starscream fidgeted behind the corner, peeking out every now and then. He was painfully aware of his size and build compared to the two battling monsters; how easy it would be for either one of them to snap him in half like a twig, and how both of them would gain pleasure from doing so. He watched as the predacon in its beastmode tackled Megatron and the pair crashed through the doors, both roaring over the howling of their engines and weapons systems. It was impossible to tell which was the beast and which was the mech.

Carefully Starscream came around the corner as the fight had moved to the other room instead of the hallway and sneaked closer to gain a visual contact again. He cowered and stayed near the wall, ready to leap and dodge should anything like a rogue blast of a fusion cannon or a fiery cloud of the predacon's breath come his way. The seeker knew he could do little else than take cover if he was to engage in the fight itself. 

Predaking's greater mass and his strong front paws with their razor sharp claws were proving to be a great asset. Megatron was busy keeping the intake with rows of denta and the pincers surrounding it away from his faceplate with both servos, and was unable to cover from the claws tearing the armoring of his chassis. Long lashes tore into the metal, energon gushed out of the deeper ones and the warlord yelled in equal amounts of fury and pain. 

Things looked bad and Starscream felt his fear growing. If Megatron were to lose, Predaking's wrath would without a doubt turn to Starscream next. Not only was he there like a treat on a platter, but he was the one Predaking resented more than any other living being, maybe even more than Megatron who he had at least respected just a short while ago. 

“Oh, to the Pits with it,” Starscream mumbled to himself, and before he had time to regain his senses he activated the missile system of his arm, aimed and took a shot. A compact but feisty little rocket soared and found its target, hitting Predaking in the back, right between the shoulder blades. Judging by the sound the beast made it was a good hit and truly hurt, and it was all the distraction Megatron needed. The warlord jumped, hooked his arm around Predaking's neck and grasped tightly before letting his own frame drop and lean backwards, tipping his opponent's centre of gravity just enough that Predaking's mass started to work against him, and tossed the beast over his hipplate, sending him rolling on the ground. 

Starscream felt dizzy after the missile had hit. He darted through the doorway just in time to see Megatron toss the beast across the room and hurried to the warlord's side

“Lord Megatron,” he said, flexing his talons without anything better to do.  
Megatron's vents came in heavy puffs and he was clutching his midsection, his chassis splattered with energon, both with his own and the predacon's. 

“My Lord, are you... functional?”

“Yes, Starscream,” Megatron hoarsely grunted, pulling himself upright. “I am still battleworthy.” The brutal smell of processed fuel was a thick cloud around the mech, and that paled in comparison to his blazing EM field that simply radiated lust for murder. 

Starscream knew the tone all too well and didn't make any further comments. Instead he glanced at the beast who had transformed to his protoform again, quickly regaining his senses and getting ready to charge again. Starscream stepped a bit further away again.

“You have underestimated me, 'your majesty',” Megatron chuckled, mockery heavy in his tone. “I was not the champion of the Pits of Kaon only because of my superior might, but also because of my cunning!”

He hit the large button on the control table right behind him with his fist, and with a hiss the doors to the corridor closed and the air-lock opened. The air in the room was rapidly sucked out of the open hatch, and so was everything not bolted down in the room as well. Starscream struck his talons on the edge of the table and folded his wings in an instinct to prevent himself from being sucked out of the ship – and hitting Predaking on the way.  
Megatron grinned beside him, holding on to the table and leaning back like he was enjoying the sight before him, making standing his ground look almost effortless. 

Predaking however was not prepared and not so lucky either. He fell backwards and would have been flung out of the air-lock if it wasn't for his keen reflexes that allowed him to grasp a hold of the door frame before he made a rather undignified exit, but he still ended up dangling there hopelessly, with only one way to go.

Megatron powered up his fusion cannon. “You are dismissed, Predaking. Now drag your scaly hive off of my ship,” he snarled and took a shot.

The blast hit Predaking straight in the middle of the chassis, his grasp slipped and he went tumbling out of the hatch. 

Starscream reached out for the controls, hit the button and the air-lock hissed shut. Megatron glared at the door for the last time before turning away, to inspect his injuries. He touched the tears in his armor with careful yet practiced digits, feeling up the damage. The leak wasn't so bad now as it had seemed at first, but one or two wounds were still letting out a small but steady trickle of energon. 

Starscream approached carefully. Megatron was completely ignoring him and the last thing he wanted to do was to sneak up on him, but he didn't need to take but a few steps before the other mech lifted his gaze.

“My Lord, allow me...” Starscream said as calmly as he could manage in his shaken state of mind and reached into his subspace. He pulled out a red rod and presented it to Megatron. It was a hollow container with a weak point in the middle so it could be snapped in half and have its contents used. It wasn't much longer than one of his talons, and even slimmer. 

“This is medical wax. Easy-to-apply first aid. Seekers use these to temporarily fix wounds in our wings to minimize their effects on our aerodynamics.”

Megatron regarded the seeker for a moment in a mildly suspicious manner, but the leak wasn't about to stop by itself. “Very well then,” he agreed, wiped most of the spilled energon to his palm and lifted his arm.

Starscream hopped closer and quickly inspected the damage with his optics. There were two cuts that still leaked, and contains of one rod would probably be enough to keep that at bay for now. Thankfully so, since he was holding his last one. He snapped the rod in half, and immediately the liquid wax started to ooze out of the two halves in his servos as air filled the vacuum with a hiss.

He used both of his servos to smear the wax on the wounds on Megatron's chassis, where it already began to set. Megatron simply observed and did not flinch once when the wax was applied, even though Starscream knew from experience it hurt on a fresh wound before it started to get better.

When he was done Starscream discarded the rod and put some distance between himself and Megatron, wounded beasts tended to bite harder after all. Megatron didn't thank him. 

The door to the hallway opened again and the awkward tension that had been building between the two broke as Knockout stepped in, carrying the Dark Starsaber in his arms.

“One ultimate weapon, coming right up -” Knockout announced but stilled when he took in the sight of a room that was missing one crucial aspect. “Where's tall, dark and scaly?” he asked. 

Megatron scoffed and strode across the small room to the medic and snatched his sword from him. “His majesty took a little flight,” he answered. “But we are not letting him go. I will hold my word and see the extermination through. Starscream! In pursuit!” 

Starscream jumped in surprise and looked up at Megatron, frightened and unfortunately certain he had heard him right. But Megatron wasn't looking at him, he was making his way to the air-lock, and Starscream had no other choice but to obey. He glanced at Knockout and saw his own shock mirrored. 

“Soundwave!” Megatron called to his internal comm line. “The Autobot prisoner is alive and has most likely called for aid by now! Prepare to be boarded, defend the Omega Lock at all costs. This ship will not be taken until our world and its counterpart have been successfully cyberformed. Alert all units, initiate red alert. This shall be the last stand of the Decepticons!” 

Starscream didn't actually listen to what Megatron declared; for all he cared the warlord could do one of his grandiose war speeches and take it to all new heights of megalomania. He was too busy staring at Knockout for these few precious kliks they had and mourn that he couldn't say anything. 

Knockout held his gaze, equally silent. There was clear fright in his optics but also remains of that burn he had had earlier. If they would never get a chance to speak to each other again, Starscream just knew he would spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out what that burn had meant.

“Starscream, open the air-lock. We are grounding the beast and taking him down for good,” Megatron ordered, already by the door. 

Starscream had no other choice but to obey. Knockout braced himself when the air was sucked out of the room again, and Starscream looked at him for one last time before giving in to the call of the void and diving out of the air-lock. 

He faced freefall with serenity and kept his frame steady. He didn't have a visual on the predacon nor did his sensors pick anything like it up. The only thing his flight radar picked up was Megatron, plummeting down as well, and, like Starscream, still in his protoform. Starscream crossed his ankles and wrapped his arms around him, then used the twist to angle his frame around so he could see the other mech, found him from his front left that had just been behind him and thus out of his visual range, and he saw why Megatron hadn't transformed.

Unlike Starscream who was simply diving, Megatron was falling his pedes first and holding the Dark Starsaber in his servo. He probably expected to be attacked in the middle of the fall and was prepared accordingly, but just like the visual feed, Starscream's scans of the area pulled up empty. 

Megaton seemed to have noticed the same thing, as Starscream's internal comm buzzed. “Starscream, do your sensors pick up the predacon?” Megatron's voice asked.

“No, they do not, Master,” Starscream replied. 

“Then search for his heat signature! I am positive that he's in the air – and most likely not retreating.”

“Right away, my Lord,” Starscream said, already switching sensors, still plummeting towards the ground in a diving pose. As long as he didn't know where the predacon was the seeker felt the most safe being a small and fast-moving target – at least until he would be forced to transform and correct the dive to avoid hitting the ground. 

Switching sensors brought up a new image in Starscream's HUD, and he instantly spotted the tell-tale heat signature, unique to a predacon, exposing the path the beast had taken. It indeed led upwards, so the beast was on wings and soaring high above. 

“I have a heading, Lord Megatron,” Starscream reported. “What is our course of action?”

“In pursuit! We will bring him down for good!” Megatron snapped back, impatient and, judging by the sound of a whirling wind, still falling. 

“As you wish,” Starscream muttered back, twisted his frame around again and finally transformed. 

The feeling was still new and fresh, but now wasn't the time to relish in it. His wings clicked together and slipped in place, his armor rearranged itself and in just a few kliks he was in his altmode with his thrusters pointing towards the ground. He fired them up, dashing up to the sky. 

Megatron held the Dark Starsaber by his side, the blade downwards, and watched as the ground became closer to him by every klik. In the distance he didn't hear Starscream transform but did hear his thrusters engaging, and he took that as a cue to act. The ground was less than thirty kliks away now, and Megatron finally let go of the blade in his servo. He tossed it against the current of air and away from his own frame, then transformed and maneuvered his altmode so he could rocket up to the sky as well. He narrowly avoided hitting the dangerously spinning blade which fell down and sank into earth, slicing through soil like it was nothing.

The roar of the jet engine reached another smoother howl as Megatron approached Starscream. Megatron flew up and next to Starscream, who complied with dropping altitude and doing a vertical roll underneath him.

 _Show off_ , Megatron thought to himself.

“The track is clear, my Lord, and growing stronger every klik. We must be closing in on the target,” Starscream reported without Megatron asking for it. Slipping into the mindset of a mission and just taking up the offered task was easy, but working himself up to the rage of battle not so much. Starscream was more distressed than angry and would have preferred to take his leave much better than engage the beast which was already running anyway, but of course Megatron couldn't do anything by halves.

Megatron didn't answer him, but the comm line hummed and Starscream knew it was open, and to be honest he actually preferred the warlord quiet. But even when silent Megatron had an ominous aura about him, his thirst for battle gaining a bright, almost sadistic edge. The howling wind registering in the seeker's audio receptors was friendly background noise and he welcomed that. 

The roar of the two engines was nothing compared to what greeted them when they finally got Predaking in their sights. The great beastmachine was beating his wings and had been mostly heading upright, and when he got the scent of his trackers they were already high enough to bolt through field of clouds. With incredible agility for a mech of his size Predaking flipped around in the air to face his opponents, and with a receptor-piercing screech threw his head back and spat a mouthful of flames towards them.

The rush of blue fire seemed to radiate even more heat in the freezing air than back inside the ship, and Starscream made a hard dodge to the left while Megatron soared right. Predaking beat his wings and hovered still, not knowing which jet to focus on first since neither one was advancing. 

“Starscream,” Megatron's voice growled through the comm, “bring that creature down!”

“Yes, Master,” Starscream dutifully answered even though his spark froze in fear at the thought of going near the beast. Like a synchronized trine, at the same time he and Megatron made a sharp turn in their courses to charge the beast. 

The heat scorched Starscream's belly side when he flew past the flames, but no damage reports popped up and he counted himself lucky. But he didn't have time to congratulate himself or a chance to rely on his luck, and he pushed himself to concentrate harder before making a sharp turn down to take a new offensive angle. 

He flew a sharp hook-shaped path underneath the predacon, and on the way up fired his blasters, sending a series of bright blue laser fire towards the target though it all bounced uselessly off Predaking's hide that covered the belly side as well as the back.  
Flying past the enemy with his back to him would have been a risky move, so the seeker altered his route by spinning around his axle and turning his straight path into a corkscrew. Predacon's manual way of flight meant he could do different turns and moves than a jetformer, and that made him an unpredictable opponent. Starscream wanted to keep his distance and made his spiral bloom wider.

When he turned his course horizontal again above the enemy and prepared to launch missiles, Starscream caught a sight of Predaking: The beast was on the move again instead of just hovering in place, and rapidly charging Megatron who had abandoned all tactics and reason and was about to collide with him head on. Starscream swore and fired his missiles hastily, and surprisingly both of them found their target at the predacon's spinal strut, but both also failed to do little else but cause a small dip in the beast's flight.

“Master, don't be a fool!” Starscream yelled into the comm while circling above the pair. 

Megatron didn't pay any mind to his second-in-command but made a sudden pull up in his course, transformed and brought his sword forth. Predaking had just launched forward and his jaws snapped shut where Megatron would have been without his little jump, and the mech struck the sword in between the large plates in the beast's long neck. The blade didn't pierce the thick hide but slid aside with a clatter and a spray of sparks, but getting past the armoring plates made Predaking shriek and roar and he tumbled around in the air, making Megatron's grip loosen. 

The mech rolled across the long neck of the predacon and almost fell off before managing to get a new hold of the large ridges on his back, and this time activated his fusion cannon. He nudged the heating tip of the cannon against the seams on the armoring of the beastformer and started to fire away. 

It was unclear if the roars Predaking let out where of pain or just pure rage, but he also started to trash and tumble in the air, doing his everything to toss the mech off him.  
Starscream flew a large and loose corkscrew around them, turning belly-side up beneath the beast and fired his blaster, but with seemingly no results aside a few burn marks on the metal. 

“Starscream! Don't waste your ammo, you fool!” Megatron's voice roared straight into the seeker's audio receptors. “Fly up! Bring him down! _Force him down_!”

The warlord hopped off the beast's back, transformed and bolted upwards, raining down blaster fire as he went. 

Starscream swore internally as he dodged a few stray shots of friendly fire and did as he was told. This was what he was built for. He knew this game. 

He flew dangerously close to the predacon, dived underneath his beating wing and narrowly avoided a chomp of its jaws. He flew up and put some safety distance between them, but soon straightened his course and launched another set of missiles that circled down towards the target. One missed, one hit the beast in the shoulder joint of the left wing, making it drop altitude momentarily, and Starscream followed. He fired his blasters again, and even though they were more or less useless against Predaking's thick hide, the blasts created a steady rain of fire that was hammering the beast. And if it was not forcing him lower, at least it was stopping him from getting higher. 

The roar of Megatron's engine was impossible to miss as he spiraled up and joined Starscream in herding their enemy. The fusion cannon whined as it loaded up and once it went off and the blast hit Predaking's wing it sent the beastmachine in turmoil downwards, accompanied by furious roars. 

But even if the beast tossed and twisted around while struggling to get air under his wings once again, he was far from done with the fight, and a bright glow through his chassis plate warned the two flyers that an eruption of fire was about to come.  
Unlike any sort of gunfire the flames the predacon spat were completely unpredictable. Individual blasts and bullets were relatively easy to dodge because there was a method in their nature, but a predacon's fiery breath was an enormous, erratic wave of scorching heat that could go any direction and spread how it pleased, almost like a living being.

Starscream barely even registered seeing the blast before he was already dodging it. He spiraled out of the way as warnings popped up when the temperature around him suddenly jumped, and they flared even brighter as the rush of fire followed him; Predaking had apparently chosen him as the primary target. The seeker pushed his engines to their limits to get a headstart, then flicked them offline and took a dive.

The air around him was suddenly cooler – a relief – but he had given up his cutting edge above the enemy for that. At least his plating hadn't suffered damage. 

“Starscream, get back up here and defend yourself!” Megatron barked through the comm. His blaster fire was falling from above, and Starscream could hear it.

“Don't tell me how to navigate in the air!” Starscream snapped back as he rebooted his thrusters and prepared to regain altitude. “I know what I'm doing! _You_ make him come lower!” 

Megatron didn't generally appreciate Starscream giving him disrespectful tone or attitude, but he was now much too engaged in the battle and Starscream was too strung up with emergency charge mixed with fear to worry about that, so the matter passed without a note. Starscream took the silence on the other end of the comm line as a small victory, and it only heightened as he dashed up again.

The erratic flight patterns and the beating wings were the two most difficult aspects about the predacon, not to mention his hide that nothing seemed able to penetrate, but Starscream was beginning to get a hang of it. He simply needed to abandon his previous experience of air combat and stop looking for rehearsed maneuvers and smooth patterns a practiced flyer would carry out – all that was useless. 

The opponent was a creature of pure instinct, and to be his match meant to become such creature himself. Starscream embraced it. Rogue current from his battle protocols and systems pushed to their limits crawled across his plating and he was wound up like a cheap toy about to bust a spring, anxious and furious and intoxicated by the chance of termination any moment now. He canceled all planned regulations of energon and charge in his flight operating systems and weapons and let base coding take command. He darted past the predacon, past furiously blasting Megatron and just as he turned his upward dash into a dive once again, his mind fell silent. 

The seeker's jet form looked small compared to the massive beastform that was rising and falling according to the movements of the wings. Starscream dived down and aimed close, closer and then some, and when he finally reached Predaking, he slipped through the small space between his side and the wing. The rush of danger he got from the risque move felt incredible, his mind buzzing with white noise, and he performed a sharp hook and sprinted back up again, this time past the dangerous head of the beast. He turned his thrusters off and his quick raise came to a halt for a fracture of a klik before he began to fall, and then he transformed. 

“Lord Megatron, turn the beast's course downwards!” Starscream barked into the comm as his heels came to contact with smooth armor of the predacon, he crouched and struck his talons down into the seams between the plates to keep himself still. “Quickly, get the helm!”

The rush of giving orders felt good, but Starscream mind remained quiet even though he was capable of producing words. His spark was spinning like a dynamo, pumping energy into his systems and pushing the whole of his physical being to the limit and beyond. He would either win this battle soon or he'd overheat and burn out of existence. The thought didn't take form in words but rather registered in his consciousness like basic sensor information, but he was too numb to fear its absolution.

His hold was an unstable one, and the constantly moving frame underneath him was about to throw him off at any moment. Suddenly the whole frame of the beast convulsed as it simultaneously tried to toss the seeker off his back but also turned his helm to reach for the seeker, and Starscream had to dodge on his already unsteady footing or risk being snapped in half by the powerful jaws. 

A loud clang like thunder knocked Starscream's audio receptors offline as Megatron in his altform hit the predacon's jaw from underneath like a sea predator would an unsuspecting sailor. The impact forced Preaking's helm and neck, already turned and stretched into an awkward angle, even further up, and the massive frame followed the strange curve. In the middle of the crash Megatron transformed, let out a triumphant roar and locked his arms around the base of the predacon's neck, right below the helm. 

Predaking let out an outraged screech that registered faintly as waves in the air in Starscream's sensors, his audio receptors still malfunctioning and trying to reboot even though the command wasn't prioritized. As the beast underneath the seeker beat his wings and twisted and tossed his helm sending the whole frame tumbling around, Starscream finally lost his grip.  
Predaking twisted in the air and threw a sideways flip, and Starscream stumbled backwards, fell over and bumped off the ridges of the creatures back, his arms flailing wildly, talons scratching and trying desperately to get a hold of something. One of Predaking's paws kicked him, and he felt a curved claw sinking into his arm and tearing it open.

Megatron tightened his strangling hold around the beast's neck. He was well-positioned, outside the reach of Predaking's jaws, claws and fiery breath, and the predacon seemed to have realized that as well and trashed about even more.

Starscream tumbled down and hit the wings, where he finally got a hold. He clung with his talons on the thick supporting structure of the wing while his pedes kicked about, trying to support his frame. He felt weightless, like if he released his hold he'd float away, as if they were falling and had reached the constant velocity. 

It took him a moment to realize they were indeed falling. The predacon flapped his wings against his sides and tried more to swat the mechs attacking him away than he concentrated to maintain the rhythm and stability needed for flight. Megatron's firm strangling hold around his neck had sent him into a fit a burning rage in which he didn't care which way he was flipping his frame, resulting in a rather graceless plummet towards the ground. Starscream thought he could distantly hear Megatron laughing. 

They hit the ground hard but in a sharp angle, so rather than creating a crater all three of them dragged along the hard desert floor, sending rocks and sand flying, completely shielded in a rapidly expanding cloud of dust. Starscream lost his grip once again and a powerful wing of the predacon that had until now kept him against the beast's side slapped him hard, sending him tumbling away from the wrestling pair. 

The sand ended up getting sucked into the cooling vents and the finest of dust got through the filters, and Starscream coughed violently while scrambling back on to his pedes. His sensors were all confused and sending mixed data, half of his systems still believing the seeker was in the air and not on the ground, and several updates crammed his feed and slowed his processor down. He wobbled on his pedes and took a look around, reassessing the situation. 

His radar scans located Nemesis not far away from them, barely a klikcycle's flight distance away and still visible to bare optics, but slowly drifting upwards. The comm line from the ship was functional but no one responded when he called on it, and Starscream assumed there was a battle going on. 

He didn't need radar or calls to locate Megatron and Predaking. The two of them had finally separated at the end of the long trail their frames had dug on the ground, both struggling to get up and both functional. Starscream's processor was still buzzing with white noise as he staggered towards them, not entirely sure why or what he was about to do, but somehow he felt that this situation, this battle, needed a proper climax – be it his termination or something else. 

But as he came closer his optics spotted something else behind the two mechs, something that gleamed and was not terribly far away: The Dark Starsaber. The sword was sunken into the ground almost halfway but nevertheless there it was, just like Megatron had left it. In its current state Starscream's mind couldn't piece together how it was there or how they were there so close to it, and a sense of wonder flooded him for a moment. The sword was like a revelation, like a sentient being granting them the climax with its appearance, and like so many things in life, this climax was meant for Megatron. 

Megatron threw a sideways glance at the sword before turning his gaze back at the beastformer, who was slowly struggling to get up on his pedes again. Predaking lifted his helm just in time to see Megatron making a run for the sword, and it took him just a klik to realize what was going on. Despite his confusion the predacon roared and jumped up to his four paws and dashed after the mech. The gallop of four giant paws turned into a thunder of two bot-like pedes as he transformed, and Starscream couldn't begin to understand why: What advantage would the beast possibly gain by changing his form from the monster into a bot?

“MEGATRON!” Predaking yelled after the warlord, rapidly gaining the short distance between them.

Ah, the ability to speak. Starscream was disoriented enough to feel a bubble of amusement at that. He wouldn't have guessed that the beast had anything left to say. 

“YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR DEEDS!” Predaking swore, but Megatron didn't even spare him a glance, let alone a reply. Even though Predaking was catching up it was starting to look like Megatron would reach the Dark Starsaber before the beast's talons would him, and judging from the loud growl of frustration Predaking let out he knew it too.

Megatron made a final leap for the sword, grasped the hilt and pulled it out of the ground smoothly like it was simply resting in a sheath, then rolled on the ground the blade against himself before springing up to his pedes again, now facing the enemy. 

Predaking slowed down and measured up his armed up opponent again. He changed his course a bit and stalked around the warlord, whose red optics followed his every move. 

Starscream stilled where he stood. His servo clutched the tear on his arm, his talons wet with leaking energon. He reconciled he could and probably should make a run for it and fly away, but decided against it. He would have to see this.

Predaking pointed one of his cruel talons at Megatron. “I will have atonement for my fallen brethren! You have taken the sparks of my kin, sentenced me for an eternity of loneliness, and I shall have your helm for that!” 

Megatron scoffed through his denta and raised the Dark Starsaber. “Oh please, spare me your pathetic whining and your righteous anger! Only the fittest survives, and your brute strength alone does not make you come out on the top in the world today!”

By every klik Predaking's fury became less and less contained, and when he spoke his voice trembled with rage: “You have the audacity to call me and my kind beasts, when you are the one who eradicates an entire species without a second thought! You play the Creator, you arrogant, godless monster! WE WERE LIVING CREATIONS, NOT YOUR PROPERTY TO TOSS ASIDE THE KLIK WE BECAME INCONVENIENT TO YOU!” 

“Oh mute it and fight me!” Megatron snapped and charged. 

Predaking jumped and transformed, meeting the mech and his unnaturally glowing blade with snapping jaws and a heavy tail striking like a mace. The Dark Starsaber beat aside the tail, and Megatron roughly showed his entire arm between the predacon's jaws and behind his denta, rending the mouth of the beast useless for now. The tail hammered the sword in the warlord's hold and threatened to knock it on the ground, but the strikes were erratic since he was simultaneously trying to free his intake. Megatron's elbow joint hit the back on the intake and he showed it deeper, dangerously close to the fangs that tried to pierce the metal.  
Finally Predaking succeeded and pulled his muzzle free, taking a shred of Megatron's arm with it. Energon splattered out and wetted the entire arm of the mech as well as the muzzle of the predacon, sprayed on the ground beneath them and smudged their pedes, and Megatron hissed and growled in pain through his denta. 

Megatron stumbled backwards a little and took a quick glance at his arm. The outer armor had been torn and the purple immersed steel plate was completely gone. Predaking smacked his bright blue intake and growled.

The success of the bite attack made Predaking lose focus on his own tail. Megatron's unharmed arm that held the Dark Starsaber slapped it aside and the sudden reckless swing of the tail made Predaking's point of gravity shift unexpectedly, making him unstable of his footing. Megatron saw the opening there and grabbed the hilt of the sword with both servos, swung it above his helm and turned the blade downwards, then pushed with all the might of his leg hydraulics, jumping up and forward in a perfect angle just above his opponent, the tip of the Dark Starsaber glowing cruelly.

The tip of the sword pierced the armoring on the top of the predacon's helm like it was tinfoil, and the whole of Megatron's weight plunged the entire rough-edged blade through the helm, through the armor, through the processor and finally out through the lower jaw that was blue with Megatron's energon. The impaled helm of the predacon hit the ground as Megatron's weight forced the tip of the sword into the sand and rock, the mech himself falling to one knee. 

Predaking's frame violently convulsed a few times, but with his helm nailed to the ground it didn't move from the spot. The great paws with frightful claws now twitched and scratched weakly at nothing, and behind the muzzle stapled shut came the a high-pitched wheeze and clicking of a vocalizer that was slowly shutting down. The power ran out of the frame as there was no spark to produce more of it anymore. Sharp electrical zaps of blowing fuses echoed from the depths of the beastformer, and finally the giant frame fell limp. A thick cloud of steam pushed out with a low hiss through the transformation seams, and the heavy smell of burnt circuits and electrical charge filled the air.

Megatron panted, still down on his knee and clutching the sword like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world. 

“It's not everyday you witness an extinction of a species,” Starscream said. He had limped closer when the sword had pierced the predacon's helm and the end result of the fight had become clear. 

Megatron lifted his helm to look at the seeker, who was truly a pitiful sight: Starscream stood unsteady on his long legs and was clutching his leaking wreckage of an arm, energon staining the whole left side of his frame and dripping down his leg. Slumped down and visibly weakened by the fuel loss he stared at Megatron with flickering optics that had the look of a mech crashing from the battle high. 

Starscream gave a small smirk. “He got the last word though, despite all your prided wit. And he was right too.”

Megatron didn't like the spiteful undertone of the seeker's voice or the implications he was making, whatever they were, and the anger gave him the strength to push himself up again.

“What are you blabbering about now, Starscream?” he snapped.

“Oh, nothing important, Master. Nothing important,” Starscream meekly answered and wouldn't meet the warlord's gaze now that it would have required him to lift his helm. 

Megatron huffed at him with distaste and turned back to their fallen opponent. Starscream watched in silence as Megatron put his heavy pede on the predacon's helm and yanked the Dark Starsaber out of the cooling husk, the dust and sand on the ground turning into murky mud as it mixed with the energon flowing out of the wound. The helm made a sickening thud as it dropped on the ground again. 

Starscream had heard everything about the exchange of words and couldn't stop thinking about them. He even ignored the rattle of the comm line open back to the ship – though he wasn't sure if he was in fighting condition anymore, or even if he could make the flight back to Nemesis that was already high above in the atmosphere, almost on orbit. His mind worked in a rather sluggish pace now that the intense battle down here was over and emergency protocols were shutting down. Error reports popped up and wave after wave of pain crammed up his processor, and only one thought made it through the mess: He couldn't ever have imagined that he'd agree with Predaking on anything. 

“You feared the power of his kind,” Starscream suddenly said, making Megatron turn back to him. “I wonder if you fear my words, too.”

“I don't fear you, Starscream. Really, is this how long your supposed pledges of loyalty hold up?” Megatron replied and lifted the sword to his shoulder.

Starscream clutched his arm harder. “Then how come you have never said anything about how I as well am just a toy for you to play with? About the things you have done to me?”

Megatron froze in place. He looked like he had to play the comment back to himself a few times to actually believe what he had heard, and when he spoke again the previous mockery had left his voice, leaving it dead serious. “What do you mean?”

“I mean how for millenia after millenia you have made me beg for my life, crawl at your pedes and buy my own spark back with my frame like a mindless drone,” Starscream answered, each word sharp and clear like cut from glass,“How you have used me, humiliated me and made me feel dirty and worthless!”

Megatron turned to face him, his optics burning and denta bared. “You made the first move, Starscream, don't you forget about that! How dare you blame me when at every given turn you have back-stabbed me, lied, plotted and undermined everything I have worked for!”

“And I am not the only one, yet _I_ am the _only_ one you have forced to buy back my life in a carnal manner! What choice did I have?!”

Megatron turned to fully face Starscream with his whole frame. He stood straight and tall but his expression was conflicted. He was making a clear effort to appear purely angry, but his demeanor was slipping closer to frustration and something else that he desperately tried to cover with clenching his denta and squaring his shoulders. The facade might have worked on most bots, but Starscream had an extended experience of being at the receiving end of Megatron's truly furious glare, and so he saw through this one. 

He was making the mighty and invincible Lord of the Decepticons uncomfortable, and that alone made him feel like he had the upper hand here, and that pushed more steam into the machine. Starscream pulled his pedes closer together and straightened his spinal strut despite the pain it caused. 

“It makes you feel bad, doesn't it?” he went on, confidence speeding his words like high-grade. “You almost feel sorry for what you've done, don't you?!”

“I don't have time for your insolence or your guilt tripping, Starscream!” Megatron snapped. “I admit that things have never been good between us, and there have been offenses, but don't act like an all innocent victim! You have nearly terminated me on multiple occasions, and what you really would have deserved was an execution, long time ago! But _you_ have manipulated _me_ in order to slither away from all punishment and responsibility!”

“You didn't give me any choice!” Starscream yelled back, holding on to the argument like a life line. He knew he was right, he knew it and held on to the certainty, but that didn't dull the sting of the warlord's words.

Megatron scoffed, spat and shuffled on his pedes. The tapped the sword against his shoulder guard, frustrated and disgusted but not sure with whom or what. 

“More manipulative words. That's the only weapon you know how to wield! Like you would have ever faced me in a fair battle, you pathetic little seeker! You tried to offline me when I lay unconscious on a med berth and you consider yourself the one to speak about abuse and using others!?”

“You speak of offenses like we are equals! But I never – I don't... Not like that. Never like that,” Starscream insisted, hissing as his hoarse voice threatened to betray him after all. “And you know that too! I didn't deserve anything you put me through behind closed doors! I hated it every time you put your servos on me! I hated it, and I hated you and I hated myself for doing it anyway!”

Megatron almost shuddered and turned away. A clear flash of pure disgust was visible on his face before he suppressed it, and Starscream saw it. 

The seeker's pedes shook underneath him. The fuel loss he was experiencing sent a steady line of error reports to his processor and he knew he would either need to get the erupted energon tube fixed or succumb to emergency shut down – and risk not coming out of the stasis ever again. 

But here was Megatron, disgusted by _himself_! He was finally being torn down from his indestructible pedestal and Starscream was enjoying every single klik of it, drinking the sight in front of him down like an overheated bot would coolant.  
“But I am better than that. I have someone now, someone who appreciates me for _me_ and is willing to risk spark and limb for me!” he triumphantly announced.

Megatron rolled his optics mostly to himself, but Starscream didn't pay any mind to it. The seeker realized he was gloating now, and even though he considered it somewhat distasteful it felt so intoxicatingly good he was unable to restrain himself.

“We tricked you, you know. I _know_ you feel sorry for what you did, even though the damage wasn't exactly to the extent we let you believe,” Starscream chuckled, trying to in vain hold back the manic smirk that pushed its way to his faceplate. “He was willing to lie to you to make me happy, and he's to me what you can _never_ be to _anyone_!”  
Another layer to his glorious victory: he possessed something that Megatron didn't – and never would. Starscream had been starving for something like that for what felt like an eternity, and what Knockout had given him had filled up a void inside of him. A cold, lifeless void that was now full to the brim with something comfortably warm and bright and brilliantly electrifying. A triumph.

One could practically see the gears working inside Megatron's helm as he rapidly put the pieces of the deception together. When everything clicked, his optics widened and his upper lipplate pulled back in a snarl. 

“You two... You pathetic, cowardly little -” 

“Don't you speak of us that way!” Starscream snapped as sharply as he could manage. He couldn't feel his talons anymore but was vaguely aware that he was still squeezing his arm with them. “Or what do I care what a bot like you thinks of us. After all... You're the one who's ridden with rust and filth here.”

Megatron spun back to him, mute with fury and slightly crouched down like a predator ready to leap at its pray. But it were Starscream's words that had agitated him so, and he was still listening. Starscream's spark pulsed with sadistic glee as he realized that this was hurting Megatron, he was doing the hurting, and it was glorious. 

“Yes, you heard me! You enjoyed it, didn't you?! You _enjoyed_ how you humiliated me and made me do and say things! Don't think I didn't notice! You wanted me to call you Master, you wanted me to thank you!” Starscream's voice hitched and broke. He reset his vocalizer and swallowed furiously, and it felt like he was eating burning hot shrapnels. He felt coolant prickling in his optics, almost overflowing but not quite. “I didn't want to offline! Was that so wrong?! You had the power, you always did! And you... You - !” 

The imaginary shrapnels filled his intake and windpipe again, and this time he couldn't swallow them down or will his voice to work again. The fuel loss was making him feel light-headed, and his legs were beginning to lose sensation too. He swayed a bit and had to grasp for support on one of the spinal ridges on the predacon's husk, but as his servo met cold, lifeless metal he flinched away in disgust. 

Megatron didn't look him in the optic, not even in his face. He wasn't saying anything either, and the Dark Starsaber was now resting its dangerous blade against the ground. The warlord didn't look his usual impressive self, filled with confidence and overwhelming presence. He still stood with his spinal strut straight and shoulders square, but he looked more awkward than frightening. The usual posture and smoothness were gone, and it slowly dawned to Starscream that he was looking at Megatron who felt ashamed.

What shocked him more than anything he had experienced today or maybe even during the whole of their war time, more than anything anyone had ever pushed upon him, more than what he had put himself through, was his own reaction to Megatron's mute and slight act of defeat.

There was no triumphant laughter, no outrageous joy or anymore gloating, no more or less improvised speech – nothing he had dreamed about during the long cycles in servitude.  
Instead a heavy wave of slightly apathetic bliss took him under. All energy seemed to leave his frame, and what had felt like the center of the universe only moments ago was now just a thing stroked through on a “to do”-list. A soft but firm tang of satisfaction sank in his spark, and a clear sense of finality took over. His mind had been incapable of forming rational, verbal thoughts during the battle and instead there had bee an endless feed of white noise and fractions of sensor information, but now it was completely silent. Almost blissful. 

“I would have stopped if you had told me to,” Megatron said to no one in particular.

“I'll never know now, will I,” Starscream replied quietly. 

The buzzing of an open comm line was little more than background noise anymore. All Starscream's functions had slowed down but he browsed through the frequencies out of habit, and met nothing but silence. He supposed there was interference since the Nemesis was so high, but one line repeated a faint standard battle alert announcement every few kliks, and since no one had turned it off, the situation was still on-going.

“There is a battle aboard the ship. Do you think you will survive it, o' mighty Lord Megatron? If you don't... Do you have... regrets?” Starscream asked with a new voice: this one was bleak and soft, like the first words in the early mornings.

Megatron huffed to himself and lifted the sword on his shoulder again. He looked up to the sky even though neither one could see the Nemesis with bare optics from down there.

“Regrets, you say... Maybe a few,” Megatron answered with a mutter. 

There was a bluish puddle of mud beneath Starscream's pedes by now, and when he swayed this time and took a hold of the husk next to him the seeker didn't care to flinch away anymore. Megatron turned to look at him but couldn't quite meet his gaze, eyeing his wounded arm instead.

“Do you think you can make the flight all the way up?” he asked casually. 

Starscream managed a little bit of laughter. “I don't know. But I don't care either way, I am done.”

For a while Megatron regarded the seeker in front of him with an unreadable expression before he scoffed to himself and turned away.  
Starscream didn't pay any mind to it but pushed himself upright once again and turned his helm back, considering the long dash it would take to reach the Nemesis. He genuinely didn't know if he had the functionality or the fuel for it, but he didn't have it in him to care either. 

Megatron hoisted the Dark Starsaber to his back, jumped and transformed. The boom from his engines knocked Starscream's audio receptors offline once again, and in a suddenly silent world he watched Megatron go, further and further away from him.  
The seeker glanced at his damaged arm. The leaking had slowed down, thanks to the autorepairs, and the torn plating wasn't in a place that would harm his flight ability. The only thing between him and his destination was the shortage in fuel, and the only way to know if the dash was indeed possibly was to attempt to make it. So he jumped and transformed, letting his thrusters take him up to the sky.  
For a seeker during wartime it was a sensible assumption to believe that the freezing cold wind would be the last thing you ever felt, and as the air rushed over Starscream's plating, turning ever colder as he gained altitude and his processor received multiple warnings about the fuel burning away, he found the feeling comforting. If there really was a natural order of things, a place Primus had pointed for them, this was his. 

When the temperature dropped below zero and kept plummeting the energon kept flowing, but small droplets of moisture from the air froze on his armor. He was tired and felt heavy in a way he usually never felt when he was flying, and the temptation to disengage the thrusters, correct the climb and just float until he'd either pass out or reach the ground grew stronger. To let himself fall into shut down mode would mean termination, he knew it very well, but the promise of rest and never feeling the grumble of an empty fuel tank had their appeal to his cloudy mind.

The communication systems were mostly mute. Starscream imagined he picked up some distant chatter from human communications, but those didn't register to him as anything meaningful and he skipped those frequencies just like those with only white noise. But his personal line was pinging too. The call was weak and irregular but it was there and it was real, and Starscream couldn't just ignore that.

He opened the line and got a wave after wave of noise. The Nemesis's Omega systems were most likely running and scrambling the signal, but he spoke anyway: “Yes?”

“Starscream?” asked a familiar voice.

“Yes?”

“Starscream!” Knockout cried out. It was definitely him even though the line rattled, and his relief was evident. “I have tried to reach you for over a full cycle now!”

“Nnnh, yes... I have been... Outside the communication... range. So to speak,” Starscream answered with a slow, lazy tone. Speaking to Knockout now was surreal. Starscream had been wrapped into his own world for a good while: It had been just the endless sky and the battle, then just he and Megatron talking of things that had never been made real before, and now it was like he had slipped into a whole new dimension where the only things that existed were he, the sky and the cold wind. It was like Knockout was speaking to him through the veil of a dream.

“Yes, yes, I see,” Knockout replied anxiously. His voice trembled with emotion and combined with the rattling of the line it was a relief he didn't try to communicate anything complicated. “Are you.. Are you alright? Where are you? Are you coming back? It's a mayhem here... It's completely out of control, let me tell you -”

“No, I'm not. There's a leak... in my arm. A predacon scratch, can you believe?” Starscream sighed. He couldn't even feel the pain anymore. “Fuel loss. I'm still... Far away...”

Knockout was silent for a moment, and Starscream imagined him halting to the spot and looking worried. 

“Can you make it? The flight?” the medic asked with his professional doctor voice.

“Perhaps,” Starscream said. He could already see the Nemesis as a black spot the size of the tip of his talon.

“No! No, listen to me,” Knockout hurried to say, and the emotion as back with full force. “You can make it, _you must_! Just keep the velocity steady, no fast movements or changes in course! Look, I'll.. I'll come get you. Or meet you. I'll come to the flight deck you always use, okay? I'll be there, I promise, don't you go quitting on me now!”

The seeker would have smiled if he could make expressions in his alt mode, but the feeling that would have prompted the smile was very real and it lifted his spark. “If you say so, my dear doctor,” he breathed back. Such sentiment, such promises. Knockout had the ability to be absolutely precious. Starscream really hoped he wouldn't run out of fuel and plummet to his death in front of him, that wouldn't be the end he had hoped for them.

The sky was no longer blue so high but completely clear and bright, like forged out of light, and beyond it was the inky void of space. The Nemesis filled his vision, the ship's belly side shining with the blinding glow of the Omega Lock.  
Destruction and rebirth, he thought as he passed it.

Before the edge of the flight deck came Starscream demanded one last violent push out of his thrusters, and then let them shut down. The push carried him up in a rapidly slowing pace, over the edge and on his command his t-cog hummed awake and transformed him. The landing would have been perfect but as his pedes hit the deck they gave out under him, refusing to support him for one klik more. The whole frame of the seeker folded into itself and he collapsed on his front, too tired to soften the fall with his servos. And so he ended up laying on his front, faceplate against the hard metal of the floor. 

The firm ground always felt strange after a long flight, but this one had been equally short and yet seemingly contained an eternity in it. Just having legs and arms again felt a bit uncanny, but Starscream was too exhausted and dizzy to grasp any of these thoughts and process them properly, so they just streamed over him like rain droplets off wings. 

There was a lot of noise. The sound of a gun fight echoed all around him and he was not sure which way it was coming from. He could hear blaster fire, clanging and tearing of metal, cries and yelling of the wounded soldiers, and there was a fire somewhere, a strong smell of smoke in the air as well. Then one sound emerged from the welling sea of battle noise, the screeching of wheels. He picked it up because it was closer to him than anything else, and his dim consciousness latched on to it like the light at the end of a tunnel. 

There was a series of clanks and shuffling plates, the wheels turned into pede steps, and then a gentle servo took a hold on Starscream's shoulder guard and turned him on his back.

Knockout gazed down at him with a mixture of relief and fright and desperately tried to keep his smile from quivering, a task he wasn't really succeeding at. His other servo hovered over the seeker, not sure if it wanted to examine the wound or lift him up, all the while afraid to hurt him. Finally it settled to cupping the side of the seeker's faceplate, the thumb lightly caressing the metal.

“Hi,” he managed to say.

Starscream couldn't find his vocalizer and make it function and dearly hoped it was enough that his optics were online and focused on Knockout's face. 

The medic swallowed thickly and kept stroking Starscream's face. “I knew you could make it. I knew. Don't worry, we'll be fine. I'll watch out for you now, I'll take care of you.”  
He eyed the seeker from helm to the tips of the pedes, assessing damage, his gaze lingering the longest on the torn arm. He hesitated a moment but then carefully rearranged his arms, sneaking one underneath the seeker, hoisted his upper chassis up a little and cradled him close. 

Against Starscream's own cold plating and energon-starved systems underneath Knockout's frame was almost burning, and he pressed closer to the pulse of life and comfortable warmth. He didn't feel any more pain or fear, and finally he gave in to the temptation of shut down. 

 

The system-wide reboot was a slow task, seeing as things like that did not tend to hurry. The life-support was the only mandatory individual system to run all the time, and everything else would have to be restarted now. The spark pulse was at a minimum first but slowly grew stronger and faster, pumping energy into the frame it occupied. Sensors blinked online one by one, first the odor detectors, then the audio receptors, and the dozens of varying tactile sensors came online too and began the synchronization of their routes and data stream systems. 

Starscream's consciousness started to return to him as well as the sensory information registered to the processor. He felt warmth underneath and around him, located his frame in a laying position and sensed something bumpy under him that held his upper frame elevated. The back of his helm was supported too, and there was a friendly touch on his chassis, a steady current of electric charge that warmed the plating just above his spark chamber. 

The optic receptors finally came online and his optics lit up. He saw a splattering of colours and detected movement, but the feed was pixelated and he tried to blink it clearer.

“Hi there,” greeted a soft, deep voice Starscream knew. The friendly touch on his chassis moved and the digits of the servo started to gently pet him. “You were out for a while.”

“Nnh... Did I... keep you waiting?” Starscream managed to push out of his vocalizer.

Knockout gave a joyless little chuckle. “Well.. You could say that. I was more worried than bored, though.”

Starscream mumbled something incoherent. His visual feed cleared up and sharpened and he took a look around. They were inside the Nemesis, in one of the big halls. He recognized the dark walls and the dim purple lighting of the ship and probably would for the rest of his existence. He tried to push himself upright to have a better look, but Knockout held him down in his lap.

“Careful now, Starscream,” the medic warned. “You lost a lot of fuel and there's only so much I can give you.”

“What...?” the seeker mumbled and glanced down at his frame. His arm was dully aching and he had ignored it until now, and saw the reason why: The damage had been hastily patched with crude welding so the warnings about the state of it weren't a priority anymore, and there was a clear medical tube strapped into his system through the tear, a slow stream of blue fuel flowing in it. Starscream followed the tube to its other end and found it disappearing below the red plating of Knockout's arm. He lifted his surprised optics to the grounder's face.

“You...?”

Knockout chuckled again. He seemed to be constantly smiling and petting, taken aback with a lot of emotion even though his EM field was kept steady and soothing like an experienced medical professional should. The medic shook his helm, telling the mech in his lap not to worry. 

“Trust me, I'm a doctor. I know what I'm doing,” he said. “I'm a bit tired, yes, but it's not like I need to worry about that either.”

“Worry about – What happened?” Starscream asked. A bit by bit he was beginning to realize he had been out for a very crucial part of the battle, and confusion that had nothing to do with low fuel levels settled in.

Knockout gave a dry little smirk, carefully pulled his servo from under the other mech's neck and lifted both of his servos up for Starscream to see. There were stasis cuffs around his wrists, the rings connected by an adjustable cord that gave him a bit but not very much space to move his servos around. Starscream stared.

“I'm a medic and I needed my servos to treat the wounded so they went easy on me,” Knockout said with a quiet voice, knowing fully well that wasn't the first question on Starscream's mind.

Starscream swallowed as the cruel truth dawned to him. “We... We lost, then?” he asked.

Knockout nodded. “Yeah, that... Would be an accurate way to put it.” He set his servos down, lifted Starscream's helm a bit and resumed the petting of his chassis. 

“We... Lost... We... We...” Starscream tried to assemble something sensible to say, but there were too many questions popping up, too many uncertainties and too many unanswerable ones regarding the future. “Then... What about Megatron?”

A strange expression passed over Knockout's faceplate and his lipplates parted without words coming out. He looked like he wasn't sure what to say or how to put it, and maybe weighed the consequences his words would have. “Lord Megatron no longer functions,” he finally said. 

Starscream's vocalizer seemed to fail and his windpipe felt like he had swallowed a cubeful of ice. He had never bought the image Megatron projected – had projected – of himself as an immortal embodiment of war but still trying to comprehend his termination was difficult. He swallowed around the block on ice in his throat, then swallowed again but it didn't seem to help. He was too preoccupied with chocking to notice the wetness running down the sides of his faceplate. It only registered when Knockout's thumb wiped the closer stream of coolant away. 

Starscream's vision was blurred again, this time because of the fluid in his optics, but he could see Knockout's expression, doubtful and reserved. “Do you grieve?” 

“No,” Starscream snapped and curled up in on himself, turned to his side and pushed his face against Knockout's chassis. He half-expected the stroking to stop, but it simply moved to his back, adapting to the change in position. 

Knockout rubbed calming circles between the seeker's wings. “It's alright, it's fine. Go ahead, dear. It's alright. He's gone now. He's dead.”

Starscream let out a strangled sob that shook his entire frame and he curled up more. He felt a cold vast emptiness inside that echoed maybe with grief, maybe with shock and maybe even more with uncertainty about the future, about anything. He let the tears run for a little while and fought to contain the tremors that shook his frame, and Knockout held him through it, EM field pulsing with comfort, expanding to coax Starscream's weak and startled one like waves hitting a shore, reaching for a stranded clam. 

“What of Earth, then?” Starscream asked when he finally found his vocalizer and trusted his voice enough to speak.

There was a curious shade of joy in Knockout's field and he held the seeker tighter. “We're not in Earth space anymore. I saw it, Starscream. I saw it, we're finally going home!”

That took Starscream by so much surprise he stopped crying. Knockout swayed on his place, rocking them gently from side to side. Starscream turned his helm a bit so he could see the grounder's expression better, and was even more taken aback when he saw the barely restrained happiness it reflected. There were tears in Knockout's optics too, threatening to overflow, and he smiled without a single undertone of cunning or anything else Starscream was used to seeing. 

It was just happiness, open and pure.

“It's Cybertron, Starscream. We're going home now! It's reborn. It's alive again, it's alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. Finally we are here, at the end. This is all, folks!  
> I have pretty much only two things left to say: Firstly I'm sorry this final chapter took so long but life happened, I hope you all haven't lost interest in this already.  
> Secondly, I am still pretty proud of myself for getting this fic wrapped up.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and sticking with the story until the end, you are incredible!  
> If you liked the story I hope you'll leave kudos and maybe those precious comments here as I'm always happy to get feedback and discuss stuff with you guys. A special thanks to those of you who left kudos and commented on the previous chapters, and know all you future commenters/likers will be appreciated as well. 
> 
> I'll keep fangirling and writing more fics about robots, but until then I thank you, bow and leave the stage.


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